A letter to a Japanese ham

I came home from sea yesterday and the first thing I did after I played with the cat was open my mail. Your QSL card was the first thing I opened. Thank you! What a nice card.

I now have the Marshall Islands confirmed thanks to you.

The Marshalls have a certain meaning to me because I started reading some family history a few years back. I found I had a cousin that had fought in the Marshalls where he came through unscathed. He was later wounded at Saipan and finally killed at Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima has been renamed now. It is Iwo To.

When I started digging around I got lucky and found a couple of old men that he had served with and learned about him. He was basically just another person of his times, and was well liked by the guys he served with. Now only a very small handful of these guys are alive. The few left are in their nineties.

I suppose that if you dig through your family tree you will likely find you lost someone somewhere along the line during those terrible times. It seems there was a lot of that going around then.

Investigating the man opened another door and I started reading up on the terrible fighting that took place in the Pacific. Of course there were a lot of books out there written by Americans. I started digging and found that there were a few written by Japanese. I went looking for the latter and found them to be in short supply but found a couple. They proved to be interesting and enlightening reading.

What I found to be interesting is that when I put the project aside I decided that of all of the people I read about, the one I would really have wanted to meet was General Kurabayashi who commanded the Japanese forces on Iwo. He struck me as quite an interesting man.

He was one of the Japanese officers that was against the war to begin with. However he was a soldier and when ordered he did his duty and put up one hell of a fight. I respect him for both being outspoken and for doing his duty as a soldier.

I was lucky enough to find a book to read that contained some of his personal notes and found that in his 5 years in North America before the war he truly enjoyed Americans. I suppose we took some getting used to, though. We're an odd people, I have been told.

Anyway, one of the things I like about this hobby is that we put all of our religion and politics aside and just try and communicate. It is a good hobby that tends to tear down walls and open doors between people. That is always a good thing.

Anyway, on a lighter note, I see on your QRZ page that you are an unattached ham. When I read that I grinned. (I have a twisted sense of humor.)

At sixty-four years old I am a little old for you and besides, age has given me wisdom. If I wasn't married already I would still not ask you to marry me. 

If you refused my offer my feelings would be hurt.

If you accepted it would be proof positive that you are completely out of your mind. I don't want anything to do with crazy people. You would likely be left standing at the altar and that's
no good. You deserve better.

I would like to thank you for our brief QSO and wonderful card and hope you continue on through life with happiness and success.

May we meet again, either on the airwaves or in person.

73 and Good DX,

Piccolo.















To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY