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Honoring Fallen Enemies
In 1944, a 20-year-old U.S. Marine corporal named Marvin Strombo got separated from his unit on the island of Saipan. Making his way back toward the rally point, he stumbled across the supine body of a young Japanese soldier. The man had apparently been killed by the concussion from a mortar explosion: his body was completely intact, bearing no apparent wounds. The sword at his side marked him as an officer. And poking out from underneath his jacket Strombo could see a folded Japanese flag.
Strombo hesitated but then reached out and removed the flag. It was covered with Japanese calligraphy: good-luck messages and signatures from the young officer’s friends and family. Flags such as this were popular souvenirs among Allied troops, so Strombo knew that if he hadn’t taken it someone else would have. But Strombo made a silent vow: “I knew it meant a lot to him … I made myself promise him that one day, I would give back the flag after the war was over.”
For seven decades the flag hung in a display case in Strombo’s home. He never forgot his promise, but he had no idea how to fulfill it. Then, a few years ago, he was put in touch with the Obon Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to returning such personal items home. By studying the names on the flag, researchers were able to trace it back to the remote Japanese village of Higashishirakawa, and to a young soldier named Sadao Yasue. Of the 180 people who had signed the flag, seven were still alive — including Yasue’s younger brother and two sisters. They didn’t know what had become of their brother, only that he had never come home.
And so, a few days ago, 93-year-old Marvin Strombo made the long journey to Higashishirakawa, where he met with the surviving family and friends of the young enemy soldier whose final resting place he had seen. He was able to bring them the closure of knowing where, when, and how Yasue died; and he was able to return to them the flag they had sent with Yasue when he’d gone off to war. “I had such a moment with your brother. I promised him one day I would return the flag to his family,” Strombo told them. “It took a long time, but I was able to bring the flag back to you, where it belongs.”
The Japanese were our enemies in World War II. And make no mistake: they were on the wrong side. Even the Japanese themselves know that today. Sadao Yasue was fighting for the wrong cause, defending a militaristic regime that was bent on conquest and domination of its neighbors, at the expense of its own populace. He was part of a military that, elsewhere in the same war, committed atrocities that are too horrible to contemplate.
But he was also a human being, a young man with a family and friends who loved him. People he left behind, people who had nothing to do with the war, except insofar as they suffered its miseries and the pain of his loss. Returning the flag to these people and honoring the sacrifice he made in no way undermines the outcome of the war, nor does it represent an endorsement of the evil for which he fought. It is nothing more and nothing less than an expression of human decency, a way of reaching out and acknowledging the pain of war.
In front of the courthouse at the center of my small North Carolina town is a statue of a Confederate soldier. Not a hero, not a leader, just a generic representation of the thousands of young men who went off to war and left grieving families behind. It is not an endorsement of slavery or a message of racism; it is nothing more and nothing less than a somber acknowledgement and reminder of the pain that war brought.
The next time I drive through town, I wonder if it will still be there.
Most of the details about Marvin Strombo’s story, and the photo, came from here.
Published in General
Fantastic post!
Thank you for this post.
What a touching story.
If you live in Pittsboro, NC, there are people standing guard around the statue in front of the old courthouse. Saw the picture on a friend’s Facebook page yesterday.
Well spotted. And that’s good to hear! I don’t often drive through downtown, but my wife goes through there every day. I’ll have to ask her if she saw anything.
Just a guess. I’d post the picture, but I’d rather do it with permission. We should get together sometime. I’m just up the road.
I can remember when you always had to drive around the courthouse if you were driving on 64. And remember the fire.
Most excellent post.
My family visited Stone Mountain when I was a kid. The monument explicitly honors both sides of the war. It was where I first heard the “Proud to be an American” song.
We also visited Andersonville, a Confederate prison camp, where we learned how the prisoners died of starvation and disease in muddy pens. My grandma there in Georgia told us how some of our ancestors, who were not soldiers, died under similar conditions in an Ohio prison camp. We mourned them all.
It’s common for families to have irreconcilable differences and resentment between some members. They are still family.
Very nice.
Here is a link to the Oban Society in Astoria, Oregon. Our daughter-in-law is a Japanese citizen and is very active in the Japanese American community in Portland. Their children speak both Japanese and English, and our son earned his Japanese language degree at the University of Oregon.
https://youtu.be/Sg6KXVRpmlE
What a beautiful piece. It should be required reading for all the news networks. My experience of Civil War monuments is that they invoke solemnity and sorrow. They don’t celebrate history; they mark it. And every now and then, as we come across one, we pause and reflect on what they represent. So those who tear them down or take them from the public square erase important reminders of a terrible time in our history.
Excellent story and post. Thank you.
Wonderful story of magnanimity and reconciliation. And excellent and eloquent post.
I think I liked every other comment so far.
This post made so clear much of what’s happening today. Thank you.
Can I share this? E-mail it to friends and family, maybe?
If you’re asking me, I certainly have no objection.
A timely lesson of history and enduring human values which is undoubtedly lost on rabid social justice “warriors,” who are the antithesis of actual warriors. Their bravery will extend no farther than defacing/destroying unarmed statues in the dead of night.
BTW, as to revisionism – Soviet inhabitants of that iteration of a workers’ paradise raised cynicism to a very high level as somewhat of an emotional defense. Among their slogans: “In the Soviet Union, the past…. is very hard to predict.” Sound like anyplace you know now??
Thanks for this added perspective, @bartholomewxerxesogilviejr! Good to see you, as well!
Thank you, BXO!
Great post. Thank you.
These words from General Grant’s Memoirs, written and published under Mark Twain’s sponsorship, around the Surrender at Appomatox and related matters, are striking, especially with regard to the camaraderie between soon-to-be-former foes – and the seeds of reconciliation being sown. [via Wikipedia]:
“When I had left camp that morning I had not expected so soon the result that was then taking place, and consequently was in rough garb. I was without a sword, as I usually was when on horseback on the field, and wore a soldier’s blouse for a coat, with the shoulder straps of my rank to indicate to the army who I was. When I went into the house I found General Lee. We greeted each other, and after shaking hands took our seats. I had my staff with me, a good portion of whom were in the room during the whole of the interview.
Thank you for writing this, Bartholomew.
It’s beautiful.
It perfectly describes what’s equally missing in the KKK, BLM , Anti-fa, and the people who justify the vandalism on memorials. Where, really, is their respect for anyone’s humanity ?
I’m sick about the statue in Durham, N.C. .