Dateline: Nippon Saniku Gakuin, Chiba Prefecture, Japan: September 22, 2011—Although I have lived in America the majority of my life, and in Alabama far longer than I ever could have dreamed, I have only experienced one hurricane. That would be Opal in October 1995. During that one the Red Cross used me as a shelter manager in Georgia. Can’t even remember one while stationed in Key West from ’75-’77. But I have experienced many typhoons while flitting bout the Pacific. I remember our ship trying to outrun one between Luzon and Okinawa in 1974. Still think about the poor sailor who was washed off the fantail late one night and never found. That was Thanksgiving day. I was the Damage Control Officer for Camp Hansen, Okinawa, when a powerful typhoon blew through a few weeks later and was back on Okinawa exactly 30 years later when the news was saying, “This typhoon is the largest in 30 years.” Caught them both.
Why this discussion of typhoons? One just blew through here yesterday. It was very bad in some areas and the wind here was furious. The college where I have been teaching hangs tenuously to the side of a pine and bamboo shadowed mini-mountain and gazes learnedly over a patchwork of rice fields below. The wind would thunder against the buildings, pounding on the windows like an irate williwaw. I was in a special office for guest speakers and so was secure and working away. Then my translator came in and asked if my windows were closed down in my guest quarters.
I like windy days with their freshness and power. I like storms with their booming voices and pyrotechnics. But to forge out into a dark maelstrom weighing not much more than the flotsam flying past and carrying an umbrella the size of a large pizza, is not my idea of a fun way to spend an evening. The rain wasn’t coming down, it was coming across. The tortured umbrella bent valiantly to its task, literally. It was an interesting walk.
When I arrived at my quarters, two windows were found to be open. One had let in a lot of rain which fell mainly on the used linens of team members who had already departed. They were slated to be washed so nothing lost. The other window was right over the full length of my bed. Visions of a pre-potty training sleeping experience slogged through my head. God is good; there was not one drop of rain on my bed and very few on the windowsill. I was amazed but I don’t know why because my Father is always doing things like this for me. I grabbed a towel, put it in a bag and swam back up stream to the office. The towel was to wrap around my wet body which my work continued.
Before this typhoon it felt as if I were home, at least heat ad humidity-wise. It has been nearly insufferable since arrive in Japan with the heat. But this typhoon drove it all away and since then it has been very cool to the point that blankets feel great at night.
I was at Nippon Saniku Gakuin for nearly two weeks. The first week we held a Phase 2 school for the students who had taken the Phase 1 last year. Here we get more into common diseases, their prevention and treatment. It was a very good session. Then most of the team left and it was just me and my translator for the second week, or three days thereof. But they were long days. I was slated to teach five 90-minute classes each of three days to the 4th year nursing students. The fifth class each evening was practicum, which was a relief. I had all females with but one male the first day. They were very interested, doing something I don’t always see here. They looked at the presentation with obvious interest and understanding. Problem is, I like to ask questions as part of the learning process. Looking into their bright and awake faces, I would ask a question like, “What would you do is a person was playing tennis on a hot day and suddenly stopped sweating and passed out?” Basic nursing 101-type question it would seem. They all smiled politely, checked their notes and smiled some more. One would whisper an attempt at an answer so quietly the other students would turn interestedly to try to hear what profound bit of wisdom one of their own had offered. A bit of whispering would ensue before the volume was high enough for my translator could catch it. It was suggested that by asking questions I was only frustrated myself and intimidating the shy students. But we had a good time of it.
The first night I took the one male student to my quarters to demonstrate the hydrotherapy technique I had taught them in the 4th class. It was the hot foot bath and I decided to give was better than to receive so the young man received a good treatment. Now, he spoke no English and I speak no Japanese so we had quite a time of it. That was the last I saw of him until we were waiting for the bus the day we left. The college van drove us to the bus stop and when we disembarked, he was walking up the road to the same bus stop. Being a holiday, the first day of autumn is a holiday here, he was apparently taking off for Tokyo. But when he saw us, he decided there was something he needed back at the Seven Eleven store and turned on his heels and retreated. He did not reappear until our bus arrived but assiduously avoided eye contact with me or Sheila, the translator.
He was a very Japanese looking young man. Thick dark hair, very almond eyes, totally insouciant. As I was giving his that treatment, I thought back 70 plus years and wondered at how things had changed. I love the Japanese people but always wonder if this one or that lost a loved one, a relative, in the war. I think of my own uncle Gordon, lost flying out of Guadalcanal in ’43. I wonder at the little lanes and the young men who left their homes forever way back then. And then I write.
The Sons of War
They knelt upon tatami mats
And drank their Saki down;
Tomorrow they would leave their homes
To serve the flag and crown.
They left their mountain hamlet towns,
They left the rice-green plain;
Those precious sights, they knew somehow,
Would not be seen again.
Honshu gave her finest youth,
Kyushu offered more;
Hokkaido and Shikoku both
Consigned their sons to war.
Mother’s wept, as mothers do,
While watched inscrutable
The fathers, as their sons, their heirs,
Fed Ares’ crucible.
And swelling past the rising sun,
Beyond the beckoning deep,
The tide of war crashed on the shore
With thunderous marshaling beat.
The Pearl in the Pacific felt
The first of conflict’s waves;
And ushered souls, too soon, into
Two thousand watery graves.
Then from Pacific’s coasts across
To Atlas’ shores they rose;
The finest youth, the nation’s blood,
Marched bold into war’s throes.
Two worlds of youth, of boys-cum-men,
Met on broad fields of fire;
And fought to gain the victory
To which both would aspire.
Alas, but one who struggled there
Could gain the victor’s prize;
But win or lose, it cost the same;
The blood of countless lives.
Long after war was swept away,
And friends were made of foes,
Still lie the bones ‘neath sea and sod,
Still stand the cross’ed rows.
