re: #140 Occasional Reader

I remember reading a remarkably frank opinion piece in the NYT from a Japanese academic who was a kid in Japan during the war years. He recounted his astonishment when the hated, demonized GIs finally showed up and occupied their country… and started handing out Hershey bars. He matter of factly said, if the situation had been reversed, and Japan had occupied the US, it would have been a nightmare of murder, rape and brutality.

Having read about the Second Sino-Japanese War and the treatment of pretty much all the countries the JIA invaded, there’s no reason to believe we’d have been an exception.