Some personal thoughts on VJ Day

A joyous crowd celebrates the end of World War II at State and Madison Streets in Chicago.
Some 500,000 people jammed the Loop streets.

On August 14, 1945, Japanese Emperor Hirohito cabled the U.S., agreeing to the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and surrendered. Victory in the Pacific brought six years of hostilities to a final and highly anticipated close.  On August 15, 1945, news of the surrender was announced to the world. This sparked spontaneous celebrations over the ending of World War II.

From the thousands in Times Square to the hundreds in main streets everywhere, people celebrated the moment. Friends, relatives and total strangers sang, danced and embraced. They had worked, fought, sacrificed and suffered together and now peace had come at last.

Images from VJ Day celebrations around the United States and the world reflected the overwhelming sense of relief and exhilaration felt by citizens of the Allied nations at the end of the long and bloody conflict.

I found a letter on the Internet that captures the moment:

Dear Larry,
This is Victory Day and of course our thoughts are only of you, and all the other men, as this is your day and means you'll soon be coming home. When we got the news last nite at 7 o'clock, we all cried with joy. Whistles blew for hours, church bells rang, and people went wild. A little bunch of kids from Smith Street had a parade, pulling a wagon with cow bells, and drumming on cans, and carrying the American flag. It was real cute. 

Holyoke is having a great big parade today, and block dancing tonite. So is every city in America. I guess we are all so happy, we can't even explain the feeling. Everyone is fine, Larry, and waiting for your return. And you will find everything the same as when you left. This isn't very much, just a V-Mail, but you were on my mind so much, I just had to drop you a line, and it seems as if I had a little talk with you. I'll write again soon. Best of everything to you.  

As always–lovingly, Mae

Today is the 75th anniversary of VJ Day ending World War II - the most catastrophic war in human history.   It's estimated that somewhere between 70–85 million people perished, which was about 3% of the 1940 world population.  Citizens from over 50 nations lost their lives to combat, starvation, in concentration camps and occupation, disease and bombings.   In three days in August, 1945, the two bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people.  And this came after months of US napalm fire bombings over Japan, which probably killed more than double that number.   Most were civilians.

The US negotiated the peace.   It was different this time.  Unlike the Treaty of Versailles, our leaders understood, that if we were to keep the peace and avoid this sort of horror again, we needed to be involved and to be present and not withdraw from the world.   So we set up institutions and installations to keep the peace - the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF,  NATO, troops overseas, etc.   My grandfather was actually the person who was tasked with protecting and taking the signed UN charter from San Francisco to the East Coast.

And the U.S. was merciful - not revengeful.  We helped countries to rebuild -- we were there for the Berlin Airlift. The US was the beacon of light and took the lead to help create a new world order.  And while we have had wars since -- nothing has been on the scale of devastation, that was experienced between 1939-1945.   We kept the peace.

It was a horrific war and one that cast a shadow over the lives of every baby boomer.   I'm not sure any family was spared.   In my family, my dad's cousin was killed and my mother's sister was left a war widow with a young child.  My cousin never knew his father.  My dad was drafted into the Army, but fortunately never went overseas.  My mother's father was stationed at The Presidio in California, so the trajectory of my mother's life was forever altered.  My dad's sister flew flew planes with the WASP. 

Everyone was all in.   Everyone made personal sacrifices with rationing, working the factories, and/or serving in some capacity.   It was a nation united and pulling together.

And while my generation was blessed to be spared the horror of that time, The War was always present in our upbringing.   I would venture to guess that many of our dads were suffering with PTSD -- I knew several who chain-smoked and/or were alcoholics.   Our parents partied very hard.

The dads would all march on Memorial Day, pulling their uniforms out of mothballs to wear in the parade.  Our parents would stoically hide their tears as the bugle played Taps as they spoke the names listed on the village memorial plaque.  One of the names was the uncle of one of my classmates.   My mother would always point that out to me.   I really didn't understand how devastating his death must have been to that family -- but my mother did. 

And the little boys would pretend to be soldiers and play war games with their toy guns.

And while the war was always an underlying presence - in TV shows and in movies and occasionally discussed in our classrooms -- none of our parents talked about it.   They wanted to put it behind them.  For my parents it was only a chronological marker.    They would talk in terms of "before, during or after" The War.    Like my mother would say, "During The War, I transferred to Stanford to be near my parents."   Or my Dad might say, "After The War we moved to Chicago."

We had a beloved president in the '50s... even a dog in the neighborhood was named Ike.  He was a man who understood war intimately and never wanted our country to be in a war again.   So he encouraged diplomacy and global alliances and moral leadership.   Most Americans were very proud of our president; few doubted his competency and character.  All respected his love of country and his personal sacrifices to this nation.   He won by clear majorities in two elections.   He led from the center looking for solutions and compromise.   He was a real leader.

And our Congress was filled with WWII veterans who went on to serve their country again -- Kennedy, Baker, Bentsen, Bush, Goldwater, McGovern, Dole, Inouye, Ford, etc.  They had experienced war, too.  Kansas Republican Bob Dole and Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye were good friends -- they had spent months together at Percy Jones Army Hospital recovering from their war wounds. 

These citizen-soldiers understood that there were all kinds of people in the world and that united we could accomplish much.  They also understood, that serving America was more important than serving the Republican or Democratic party.  So they worked hard to find common ground.

But the thing that continues to amaze me about that WWII generation was how duty, honor and country really mattered to them... at least in my home.  My mother put her flag out religiously and was strict that we stand up for the national anthem and pledge of allegiance.   There was tremendous love of country... of our history...   My parents were so big on thinking about other people... considering other people's feelings... being a concerned and solid citizen...doing your part.  Personal freedom was far less important than showing responsibility and carrying about community.

That was the world of my childhood.

I suppose because I was raised this way, it explains why I am so utterly appalled by the current situation in our country and have such a distaste for people who only care about themselves.   It's a mystery to me why wearing a face mask and social distancing have become a big deal, when it's all so easy to think about the needs of others.

I'm aghast that we have a president, who is trashing the alliances that have kept the peace for the last 75 years and is promoting fear-ridden isolationism like the America First movement of the 1930s.  I'm outraged that he disparages the civil servants and health care professionals who are trying to educate and help us through this difficult pandemic.   I'm heartbroken that our country is so fractured and that we have a president who actually encourages the divisions and promotes tribalism over community. 

Read No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin.   It tells the story of a nation working together and a president who was an actual leader.

America has a complicated history.   We showed unprecedented generosity and magnanimity with the peace after WWII, but at the same time we have also been the only country in history that ever used nuclear weapons in armed conflict.  History is always morally complex and I think it's naive to think that we can create moral clarity and rewrite our history by removing questionable symbols or demonizing historically significant participants.  It's never either/or.   It's always both/and.

I'm forever proud of my many ancestors who helped form this nation of ours.  Were they all perfect people?  Should I be ashamed of them?  No.  No one is perfect.   And I refuse to condemn them. They did what they did in the context of the times in which they lived and made decisions based on their own personal circumstances.   I wasn't there so I refuse to judge them by today's standards.   I just hope that I can be a good person and future generations don't condemn my decisions or judge my life.  We need to embrace our history -- all of it:  the good, the bad and the ugly.   And there has been a lot of good.

I often wonder how history will be written about the early 21st Century of the United States.   I pray that it doesn't show us as a nation beginning to fade into oblivia like the Roman, Greek and British empires.   E Pluribus Unum is a such noble concept and hopefully one that can last.  ...one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all... 

As we reflect on the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII,  listen to some veteran's stories recorded and saved at the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/vets/stories/ex-war-end-wwii-75.html  Hearing their stories, I am inspired.   I also am reminded that being asked to wear a mask, social distance and wash my hands regularly is a trivial responsibility compared to what my parents' and grandparents' generations had to endure. 

In honor of all those who perished defending our freedoms, can we just please remember that this is a global effort? 

We're all in this together.