THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 15, 1995 TAG: 9505120024
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
Each morning as I approach my desk, I see a picture of the Lackawanna, my Navy fueling ship, refueling the Wisconsin and a destroyer at the same time. A dangerous operation? You bet! One spark or kamikaze attack during this operation could have blown all three ships out of the Pacific.
A recent letter form a Japanese man who was adopted by an American suggests that it is time for Americans to forget and forgive the horrors and atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II. How can I forget the operation or any of the nine engagements that I participated in during the 3 1/2 years that I spent on that ship? How can I forget the bloated bodies that floated by my ship in the landings that my ship was part of?
This picture reminds me every day how fortunate I am to have survived 3 1/2 years on a ship carrying 175,000 gallons of fuel for the fighting ships of our Navy. The writer of the letter I cited can forget and forgive; he did not experience the fear that my shipmates and I lived with.
Someone wrote that those who fail to remember the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
We should never forget the terrible experiences that any of us endured, nor should we apologize for the A-bomb or for the bombing of Tokyo or any city to save American lives. We should never forget the terrible experiences we endured nor apologize, but should recall these lessons from our history to remind us to never let it happen again.
HOWARD M. JACOBSON
Norfolk, May 4, 1995 by CNB