Has anyone read this book? I know its been out for a year or so but I got it for Christmas. I couldnt put it down. Its the best book Ive read in awhile.
At first, some of the things he said kind of made me a little angry, but as I read it, it really shined a light on the US's part in molding the way the Japanese developed into the way they did before WW2.
To me racism was something where you thought less of the other race than your own. The book made me realise its much deeper than just that. Where not only do you dislike them, but you NEVER want them to achieve parity with your race, and do whatever it takes to keep them at a lower level. Forgive me if this is obvious to you, it wasnt to me. Atleast with the Japanese. They tried to copy the way the west "expanded" their territories, by military might, but when they tried it on China, the West said "No!!..thats not how civilized nations act."
The book focuses on the lives of navy airmen shot down at Chichi Jima. Their pre-war lives, training, capture and executions. At the end of the book, it tells of one Japanese man who befriended one of the captured US flyers, and was saddened by his execution. How he would somehow find a way to keep his memory alive. Apparantly he took the flyers first name as his own after the war. WHen I finished reading it, my wife sitting beside me on the couch, I had all I could do to keep from balling right there.
Ive read alot about WW2, but never anything so vicious, but at the same time human before. I recommend it to anyone.
