Virtually all nations have a national shrine to honor their war dead. Two examples are America's Arlington Cemetery in Washington, D.C., and Australia's Shrine of Remembrance near Melbourne. Such memorials, in whatever form they take, hold the memories of a nation formed around the causes that sent its men and women into war. These shrines hold an almost sacred place in the heart of a nation. Watch any Memorial Day observance and you will see the nationalistic emotions pour forth. Those who fought the wars have long memories.
One of those memories is bitter resentment. Events surrounding Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the United States last month demonstrate this. One of his stops was to be Arlington Cemetery. Japanese officials wanted the prime minister to give an address before Congress as well. That prospect was nixed when Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois objected to such an event. Hyde is the chairman of the House International Relations Committee as well as a combat veteran of World War II, in the Pacific theater.
Since 2001 Prime Minister Koizumi has made five visits to Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine. This shrine, run by Shinto priests, honors 2.4 million Japanese servicemen killed in Japan's wars of the last 150 years. The shrine also honors 14 executed war criminals, including General Hideki Tojo, the architect of Japan's World War II strategy. The site has become a flash point for Japan's attempt to play down the atrocities committed during the war. Approximately 20 million Asians died during the period of Japanese imperial expansion in the 1930s and 1940s.
It is easy to suggest that the survivors should forgive their enemies, but it is not easy to do. More than 90,000 American servicemen died in combat against Japanese troops. Japanese atrocities against captured American servicemen, such as the Bataan Death March, were particularly horrible. Torture, execution and the rigors of the march left 10,000 POWs dead. The 61 years since the Japanese surrender have not been long enough to erase the scars.
