Japanese Prime Minister Abe Announces Visit to Pearl Harbor Later This Month
This is pretty symbolic of how much has changed in 75 years:
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Pearl Harbor with U.S. President Barack Obama at the end of this month, becoming the first leader of his country to go to the U.S. Naval base in Hawaii attacked by Japan in 1941, propelling the United States into World War II.
Monday’s unexpected announcement came two days before the 75th anniversary of the attack and six months after Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the memorial in Hiroshima for victims of the U.S. atomic bombing of that city at the end of the same war.
Abe, in a brief statement to reporters, said he would visit Hawaii on Dec. 26 and 27 to pray for the war dead at Pearl Harbor and to hold a final summit meeting with Obama before the latter’s presidency ends. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link.
I was stationed at Pearl Harbor, HI for most of my Navy career, and went to the Arizona Memorial quite often. My retirement flag was one of the many they fly over the Memorial on Dec 7th.
Anyways, on one of my visits to the Memorial Museum I held the door open for an elderly Japanese man. He said “Sank you.”
So I punched him right in the face! You don’t joke about that sort of thing!
😉