Smackdown

Well, I had a couple of, what I thought were pretty good posts on the Pacific War, and Tom Hank's recent comments.

Well, today, I have to say, I have been mildly smacked down by Victor Davis Hanson is his outstanding piece at Pajamas Media.

Dr. Hanson takes my teeny logic and greatly expands upon it, in particular noting how quickly the U.S. and Japan became allies after the war, first as a matter of convenience to stop Soviet and Chinese communism, but later as lasting allies and trading partners. 

The interesting thing to note is his analysis of E.B. Sledge's memoir as a very stark accounting of the close quarter combat and its affects on both young Americans and Japanese"

But if anyone is interested in the role of race on the battlefield, one could probably do far better in skipping Hanks, and reading instead E.B. Sledge’s brilliant memoir, With the Old Breed, which has a far more sophisticated analysis of race and combat on Peleliu and Okinawa, and was apparently (and I hope fairly ) drawn upon in the HBO series. (Sledge speaks of atrocities on both sides in the horrific close-quarter fighting on the islands, but he makes critical distinctions about accepted and non-accepted behaviors, the differences between Japanese and American attitudes, and in brilliant fashion appreciates the role of these campaigns in the larger war. One should memorize the last lines of his book.)

Perhaps I shall have to add that book to my very, very long reading list.

Grouchy but still willing to learn.