Richard Pearson

On August 6, 1945, the United States dropped the first of two atomic nomads on Japan.  The first was on Hiroshima and the second was August 9 on Nagasaki.  Japan surrendered the next day.  Being the eternal history fanatic, I watched a special on those two events a few nights ago.  It followed the same pattern of a couple of others in previous years.  There was a Japanese woman talking about how terrible it was.  Since there were no American soldiers who talked about how terrible the Japanese were, I will.  

My father was a WWII veteran who fought the Japanese in the South Pacific.  Growing up, he never talked to me about his experiences.  All I knew was that he had nightmares nearly every night about fighting Japanese soldiers hand to hand.  As a child digging around in mom and dad’s closet one day, I found two Purple Hearts.  In the last six months of my father’s life, he talked about some of his experiences.  One of those was a recovery mission to find American pilots that had been shot down by the Japanese but had parachuted out of their planes and had been captured.  They found them alright, in a cave, beheaded, and their bodies mutilated.  That was one of the experiences he dreamed about.  While in New Guinea, American troops would find some of the natives that the Japanese would just torture and kill for fun. While there are more stories, you get the idea. 

My first understanding of how ruthless the Japanese were came in my first year in college.  I went to Eastern Illinois University my first year.  I took a class in Far Eastern geography with Dr. Ying Ching Chang, who better right?  I got more than I bargained for.  Dr. Chang grew up in China and fought the Japanese in China in WWII.  He was a college student in Nanking (now known as Nanjing) in 1937 during the Rape of Nanking by the Japanese.  He saw and he lived it.  He helped save the Chinese Library in Nanking by loading the entire library on barges and floating it down the Yangtze River.  The Japanese wanted to destroy everything Chinese.  The Japanese killed, raped and mutilated somewhere between 220,000 and 300,000 people in one of the greatest war crimes in history.

Dropping the atomic bomb saved both American and Japanese lives.  I get tired of hearing about civilian casualties.  In total war, there are no civilians.  Although it is not something we like to think about, it is a fact.

The controversy over mail in ballots is heating up.  I really don’t trust many of the election results in Illinois, just for the record.  Mailing unrequested ballots to everyone on the voting roles seems like a situation designed for fraud.  I am going to relate a story to you that was told to me more than 20 years ago by a friend of mine who was a rookie firefighter in Chicago in 1960.  I have thought long and hard over writing about what he told me happened.  I finally decided to publish it.  In 1960, the two most powerful men in Chicago, and perhaps the state, were Mayor Richard M. Daley and Chicago Fire Commissioner Robert J. Quinn.  The Presidential Election turned on whether Illinois went for John F. Kennedy or Richard M. Nixon.  My friend and two other new firemen were told to report to the Alderman’s office in the Ward where the firehouse was located.  They were told two things: they would receive their regular pay even though they were not on duty and to keep their mouths shut.  For three days, my friend and the other two firemen marked ballots in favor of John F. Kennedy.  They marked over 10,000 ballots.  There are 50 wards in Chicago.  If even half of them participated in this fraudulent scheme, that is still 250,000 ballots.  Kennedy won Illinois with 2,377,846 votes to Nixon’s 2,368,998.  That is a difference of only 8848 votes.  The entire course of Untied States history changed because of that election.  We can’t allow this kind of activity to happen.  If we do, the United States will become just another banana republic.

The sales of firearms continue to break records.  July was up 134% over last year.  Ammunition continues to be in short supply.  For those looking for ammunition, there is a gun show in Muncie, Indiana this weekend.  Muncie is in the Eastern Time Zone so they are an hour ahead of us.
 
Tidbits:
August 6, 1890, the first execution using the electric chair.

August 7, 1782, George Washington creates the Badge of Military Merit, known more commonly as the Purple Heart.  The first Purple Hearts were made of cloth.

August 10, 1846, the Smithsonian Institute was created. It is nicknamed America’s Attic.

August 10, 1945, Japan surrenders.

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