WELCOME TO THE JAPAN OF THE EARLY 1960s
For some reason, I always knew that I would go to Japan. From the time I was a small boy I sensed a fascination with Japan. Some might say it was because I heard so much about Japan when I was a young boy. Sure, that had an impact on the subject, but there was more to my interest in that faraway island empire than a war. The war ended when I was almost four years old. At that age, I had no concept of hate or vengeance but there were war games being played in the neighborhood. As a boy, we played outdoors with toy guns. We played cowboys and Indians and we played war. For whatever reason, the war games involved Japan and the USA rather than the Germans. I believe there were numerous reasons for this. One reason might be the propaganda I was exposed to during and after the war. One reason was the stories the returning GIs told us boys. Most of us had a dad or relative who served, so our take on the war was somewhat influenced by the tales we heard. There were numerous movies that continued to punish the Japanese long after the surrender. We continued to find new movies and new comic books about World War Two as we grew older and taller. The John Wayne movie, Sands of Iwo Jima, was the movie that we liked the best. There are many reasons why we chose to play war games against Japan and it is a subject that I want to mention in depth in future posts. To focus on the subject, the Japan of the 1960s, let me state that my hint of the future became a reality in 1961 when the Pan American Boeing 707 landed at Haneda Airport in Tokyo in August of 1961. My first day in the Japan was one that was pleasant and one that I will always remember.
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