Peace Memorial Park

Today is Memorial Day.  (Well, when I started this post it was.  Now it's, um... later.) We had planned to go to Peace Memorial Park here on Okinawa, which would have been very fitting for the day, since it is the main memorial to the Battle of Okinawa, which took place towards the end of World War II.   It lasted from April to June 1945, and resulted in the highest number of casualties in the Pacific during WWII (info from Wikipedia, with references).  Okinawan gov't sources say that 77,000+ Japanese soldiers were killed or committed suicide, 14,000+ Allies were killed,  and between 42,000 and 150,000 locals were killed or committed suicide, which was a significant chunk of the population -- between 1/10th and 1/3 of the total.  We did not make it to the Park on Memorial Day, but we did go a couple of months ago.  There's also a museum, and more to the grounds.  It's a sobering and beautiful place.  We will definitely be going back, to explore it even more.

I like this picture, taken under a big, beautiful archway, because Nuala is so crazy in the background. She wasn't trying to be. She just was.  Because she is. Because we all are, sometimes.

See?  We called her "the Boodler" or "Boodles" when she was little. We still do! Ahem...little vocab lesson coming up:  To "boodle" is to walk/run/move in a less-than-careful way.  "Oh, she just boodled right off the curb!"  She doesn't boodle quite so much as she's gotten older, but we kinda like it when she does... ;) 

I like this one because Bran was valiantly smiling while strategically kicking Nuala away from him. Sometimes they bug each other. Weird.  THAT'S the awesome archway.

There was a pond nearby, and this elegant egret came and joined us as were looking for turtles. We felt fancy just being near him.

Pretty fellow, huh?  We see lots of them here, and they never get old.  Well, they probably DO get old, unless they've discovered the fountain of youth (haHA!), but you know...

Then we walked among the names.  

Zac was able to read them for us, of course. He's so very handy to have around.  The memorials that list names are always the saddest... They really drive home how many people died... individuals... :(

And, the Cornerstone of Peace.  Okinawa was greatly affected by World War II.  It was not a part of Japan at that time, so it wasn't like the Japanese were fighting on their home soil. Overall they didn't care about the Okinawans!  Okinawa just got to host a terrible battle, and suffered so much for it.  Now I feel like those people in the photo above are smiling very inappropriately. I'm sure no one said, "okay, now smile!"  Well.  Obviously the smiles are because of the lovely message on the cornerstone...

Looking down at some of the cliffs that Okinawans jumped off of as the Americans were gaining the upper hand.  The Japanese told the Okinawans that they would suffer terrible fates if the Americans captured them. That link, above, and also now at the end of this paragraph, tells a lot more about the atrocities forced on the Okinawans by the Japanese.  Regarding the suicides, though, this is copied from there: 

With the impending victory of American troops, civilians often committed mass suicide, urged on by the Japanese soldiers who told locals that victorious American soldiers would go on a rampage of killing and raping. Ryukyu Shimpo, one of the two major Okinawan newspapers, wrote in 2007: "There are many Okinawans who have testified that the Japanese Army directed them to commit suicide. There are also people who have testified that they were handed grenades by Japanese soldiers" to blow themselves up.^[45] Thousands of the civilians, having been induced by Japanese propaganda to believe that U.S. soldiers were barbarians committing horrible atrocities, killed their families and themselves to avoid capture. Some of them threw themselves and their family members from the southern cliffs where the Peace Museum now resides.^[46] However, having been told by the Japanese military that they would suffer terribly at the hands of the arriving Americans if they allowed themselves to be taken alive, Okinawans "were often surprised at the comparatively humane treatment they received from the American enemy."

This was beautiful.  That fountain has a map of the Pacific area on the bottom, and the pointy thing in the center is on Okinawa.  That was the lamest explanation ever.  You get it, right?

We really enjoyed our visit to the Peace Park.  It's so very good for the kids, and for us, to go to these places. I absolutely think that visiting them, and learning about the events, does, as is inscribed on the Cornerstone of Peace, "pass the lessons learned from the tragic war on to future generations, and... will contribute to everlasting world peace."

There was also a playing park, much to the delight of the rascals. And the parents! Though we all enjoyed the non-playing park.

Okinawa just has some really cool playgrounds. They deserve a post! Sometime...