{"id":90533,"date":"2013-11-11T20:02:58","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T19:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gregpalast.com\/?p=8986"},"modified":"2013-11-11T20:02:58","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T19:02:58","slug":"my-fathers-victory-in-the-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/my-fathers-victory-in-the-pacific\/","title":{"rendered":"My Father’s Victory in the Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Greg Palast<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1995, in Chicago, veterans of Silver Post No. 282 celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their victory over Japan, marching around a catering hall wearing their old service caps, pins, ribbons and medals. My father sat at his table, silent. He did not wear his medals.<\/p>\n

He had given them to me thirty years earlier. I can figure it exactly: March 8, 1965. That day, like every other, we walked to the newsstand near the dime store to get the LA Times<\/em>. He was a Times man. Never read the Examiner<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He looked at the headline: U.S. Marines had landed on the beach at Danang, Vietnam.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a kid, I was fascinated by my dad\u2019s medals. One, embossed with an eagle and soldiers under a palm tree, said \u201cAsiatic Pacific Campaign.\u201d It had three bronze stars and an arrowhead.<\/p>\n

My father always found flag-wavers a bit suspect. But he was a patriot, nurturing this deep and intelligent patriotism. To him, America stood for Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Four Freedoms.<\/p>\n

My father\u2019s army had liberated Hitler\u2019s concentration camps and later protected black students on their way to school in Little Rock, Arkansas. His America put its strong arm around the world\u2019s shoulder as protector. On the back of the medal, it read \u201cFreedom from Want and Fear<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

His victory over Japan was a victory of principles over imperial power, of freedom over tyranny, of right over Japan\u2019s raw military might. A song he taught me from the early days of the war, when Japan had the guns and we had only ideals, went,<\/p>\n

\n

We have no bombers to attack with,
\nWe have no fighters to defend the flag with
\nBut Eagles, American Eagles,
\nfight for the rights we adore!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it,\u201d he said that day in 1965, and folded the newspaper.<\/p>\n

The politicians had ordered his army, with its fierce postwar industrial killing machines, to set upon Asia\u2019s poor. Too well read in history and too experienced in battle, he knew what was coming. He could see right then what it would take other Americans ten years of that war in Vietnam to see: American bombers dropping napalm on straw huts, burning the same villages Hirohito\u2019s invaders had burned twenty years earlier.<\/p>\n

Lyndon Johnson and the politicians had taken away his victory over Japan.<\/p>\n

They stole his victory over tyranny. When we returned home, he dropped his medals into my twelve-year-old hands to play with and to lose among my toys.<\/p>\n

A few years ago, my wife Linda and I went to Vietnam to help out rural credit unions lending a few dollars to farmers so they could buy pigs and chickens.<\/p>\n

On March 8, 1995, while in Danang, I walked up a long stone stairway from the beach to a shrine where Vietnamese honor their parents and ancestors.<\/p>\n

Halfway up, a man about my age had stopped to rest, exhausted from his difficult, hot climb on one leg and crutches. I sat next to him, but he turned his head away, ashamed of his ragged clothes, parts of an old, dirty uniform.<\/p>\n

The two of us watched the fishermen at work on the boats below. I put one of my father\u2019s medals down next to him. I don\u2019t know what he thought I was doing. I don\u2019t know myself.<\/p>\n

In \u201945, on the battleship Missouri, Douglas MacArthur accepted the surrender of Imperial Japan. I never thought much of General MacArthur, but he said something that stuck with me.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt is for us, both victors and vanquished, to rise to that higher dignity which alone benefits the sacred purposes we are about to serve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

********<\/p>\n

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times<\/em> bestsellers Billionaires & Ballot Bandits<\/a>: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and the highly acclaimed Vultures’ Picnic<\/a>, named Book of the Year on BBC Newsnight Review.<\/p>\n

Visit the Palast Investigative Fund’s store<\/a> or simply make a contribution<\/a> to keep our work alive!<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Palast’s Newsletter<\/a> and podcasts<\/a>.
\nFollow Palast on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

www.GregPalast.com<\/a><\/p>\n

ShareThis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Greg Palast In 1995, in Chicago, veterans of Silver Post No. 282 celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their victory over Japan, marching around a catering hall wearing their old service caps, pins, ribbons and medals. My father sat at his table, silent. He did not wear his medals. He had given them to me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-90533","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}