Remembering the Flying Tigers

Japan's prime minister and the PM before him apologized several times in Japan and on visits to China but what sets off the Chinese again and again is the PM's visit to the war dead shrine. The names of many war criminals are associated with this shrine, along with the million plus dead from wars with China, Russia, etc.
This has always been a puzzle to me since I was raised in Japan in the 1950s (Army brat) and there was still evidence of the war to see and many Japanese veterans trying to live in a fast-changing society. The Japanese government completely ignored the amputees and parents of war dead who had no homes to go to, but made a big show of going to the shrine honoring the dead.
My dad's Masonic Lodge, along with trying to help crippled children in Japan, adopted a unique orphanage of old people the Japanese government had built but neglected to fund. These were old men and women who had lost their sons to the war and were destitute. They lived communally in a big building in the Japanese countryside. I got to visit them with my dad several times and still wonder what they thought about the Americans.

And if you didn't know, one of the 'Flying Tigers', was Gregg Boynton, weho after being conscripted back into the Marine Corps, bacame the leader of the VMF 214 known as the 'Black Sheep' Squadron.

I knew Pappy in his last years and attended his memorial service. He had mellowed in his old age, but when with a fellow drivers he could tell some great stories. Truly an American Hero.

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