Stage In The Sky

Major Kenji Hatanaka

Major Kenji Hatanaka

On August 14, 1945, 22 year old Major Kenji Hatanaka organized a raid to seize the Japanese Imperial Palace in an attempt to prevent the Emperor from radio broadcasting their surrender to the Allied Forces. This came just eight days after Hiroshima was bombed. Hatanaka failed in his mission and committed suicide on the 15th.

My imagination goes wild when I read of Kenji’s story. I know that as a millennial, its seems to be an unpopular sentiment to have pride for one’s country. Especially when you live in the so-called “Greatest Nation on Earth”.

So, this is just my unfiltered thoughts that I’m just posting on my website. I usually write it in a word doc, then proofread it, delete a couple of things. But its coming up on 1:30 am and I need to go work out soon. So here goes.

On Saturday, I saw a Comedy Central special of Sinbad performing some awesome stand up. Funny and home-hitting, as expected. But the thing about some of these comedy specials is that you pick up some philosophical thoughts here and there. Comedians are licensed to say what a lot of people are thinking, but we just don’t say out of respect or fear of being labeled this that or the other.

But one of the things he said was that his generation needed to die out. Because the younger generation aren’t aware of the racism that his generation had to deal with. He joked that a youngster once told him that, “racism doesn’t exist anymore”.

And depending where you’re from or who you’re dealing with. That may be true. Our country has come a long way. Much further than a lot of us millennials like to give credit for. But since race has died down, there are other social groups in arms fighting for what they perceive is worth fighting for, but this article isn’t about that.

While I do somewhat agree with Sinbad, that I think people with the archaic mindset of racism and strict ethnic traditions do need to perish before we as a nation can move forward in unity, I also fear that with their disappearance, a sense of national pride will also perish. And that is a very scary thought.

We see it. More and more, thanks to the entertainment industry, our youth and the impressionable (nice way of saying sheeple) are falling for that crap MTV and reality TV is spitting us about how being a douchebag can indeed pay off. How…I’m sorry. I’m getting off topic again.

The point is, with a loss of national pride, this country can be easily defeated. And some people don’t even care about that. A couple of weeks ago we just learned that if you kidnap one of our soldiers, we’ll give you five in exchange for him. I know I’m not the only one who sees how decisively weak that makes us look. And people like to point and say, “oh it wasn’t Obama’s fault. People need to stop blaming, Obama.”

That’s not the point. The President of the United State is essentially our frontman, our quarterback, our captain. I know people in the army right now who hate his guts, but respect him to say, “He’s still our commander and chief.” Which, I think is an honorable attitude to have. I still cringe when I remember Bush being booed out of the White House. And it pisses me off further when I recall that asshole who threw a shoe at him. What was worse was when our fellow Americans laughed at Bush for that. That bastard didn’t just throw a shoe at Bush. He threw a shoe at a representation of the USA whether you voted for him or not.

I just went on a rant there…what does that have to do with Kenji Hatanaka. Well… To be honest, I can sympathize with him a bit. Think about it. This is a good writing exercise. What if a foreign country bombed two of our most prominent cities and then the US president gave in to broadcast a surrender to those countries? What would you do? How would you feel?

Then I dove deeper. And this is how messed up my thoughts go. What if the US dropped another atomic bomb on a country that was catastrophic. So catastrophic that the United Nations declared war on the US.

There’s a movie called “Emperor” Starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gen MacArthur. It’s on Netflix. You should check it out to see a new perspective. But in this movie, The US has just won the war and is now occupying Japan. MacArthur and his Brigadeer General Fellers are tasked with deciding whether or not to try Emperor Hirohito for war crimes.

What if the shoe was on the other foot. After being rocked by two atomic bombs with a foreign country invading our land and storming the white house, trying to decide the fate of the US president, would we sit back and allow that to happen? Would we do as Kenji Hatanaka did, form a party and try to rescue the President against the President’s wishes?

I don’t know. With our stance so…so lackadaisical…I don’t know. Alright. So I’ll probably delete this post after a week or two. But yeah. Its here for now.