Apologies all around
McSorley, Richard
REMEMBERING WW II APOLOGIES ALL AROUND [N ATOM'S FALL, WE SINNED ALL At 7:30 A.M., December 8, 1941, [Philippines time], I sat in a dentist's waiting room seventyfive miles south of Manila....
...By refusing to apologize we lose that blessing...
...it was turned up loud enough for me to hear the announcement...
...Little did I realize that these same Japanese, who were standing there with their faces to the wall, would be in charge of the town jail one week later, the jail where I and other Americans would be prisoners...
...Can't you do something about this...
...They aren't trying to escape...
...in a few months to study theology...
...I walked over to the officer who seemed to be in charge...
...Tell them these people aren't enemies...
...I expected to be going home to he U.S...
...If you don't believe me," she said, "then just look out the vindow...
...Yes, and Clark Field, too...
...a Filipino asked me...
...We would benefit ourselves by an apology: "The quality of mercy is not strained...
...Some in the crowd were constabulary police n khaki uniforms...
...They ought to...
...The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor and Davao," she aid...
...As a former American prisoner of the Japanese, I welcome their apology, and I repent and apologize for what "this nation, under God" did to the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
...Can't you move your men back a little from the Japanese so there won't be any accidents here...
...That was the end of my dental appointment...
...We would do ourselves and the world a favor by apologizing for introducing the nuclear age by destroying two entire cities and their populations...
...I thought to myself, "This old lady doesn't know geography...
...No moral theory supports the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
...President Bush said the U.S...
...I am glad the Japanese apologized...
...would not apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
...Office hours start early in the Philippines to allow time for a long siesta during the heat of the day...
...A Jesuit seminarian from Philadelphia completing my third year of teaching at Ateneo de Naga High School, I was one of eight or nine Americans in the town...
...Three years and three months later, February 23, 1945, we were rescued from Los Banos prison camp by American paratroopers...
...As the rowd watched, they went into one Japanese store after another 6: 31 January 1992 Commonweal and soon had ten Japanese lined up with their faces to the wall, a constabulary member with a bayonet behind each prisoner's back...
...Apparently he thought I could make a difference because I was an American dressed in a priest's white cassock...
...The United States of America will declare war on Japan...
...I asked...
...Below me on the street a crowd of people were grouped around a radio...
...Richard McSorley, S.J., heads the Center for Peace Studies at Georgetown University...
...A group of ten or more constabulary police with rifles and bayonets moved through the bazaars facing the plaza...
...he doesn't know that Pearl Harbor is eight thousand miles from )avao," which is in the southern Philippines...
...That really brought the war closer o home: An American air base north of Manila, Clark was on he same island with us...
...What do you think I can do...
...asked one of the people near the radio, "Did you hear the news bout Davao being bombed...
...From my expression she probably saw that I did not believe her...
...Speak to the captain...
...We were at one side of the town plaza, in he center of town...
...They are known to everybody here in town...
...RICHARD McSORLEY Rev...
...You can round them up without threatening their lives...
...We have orders to round them up...
...They are fifth columnists...
...I pulled back the curtains...
...The woman sitting next to me asked, "Did you open your adio this morning...
...Seven of us Jesuits were taken under guard to the Naga prison on December 13, 1941...
...I felt like saying, "Lady, we have better hings to do early in the morning," but in fact I said nothing...
...But even if they had not, we should...
...I ran downstairs o join the group...
...It is twice blessed....it blesseth him that gives and him that takes...
...Those bayonets might go into them if anybody slips...
...As I marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack last month, I noted that the Japanese foreign minister and prime minister had expressed remorse for the attack, and that the Japanese parliament had discussed apologizing...
...It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven...
...It was getting crowded with excited people...
Vol. 119 • January 1992 • No. 2
