What I Think About at This Time of Year

I hesitated over whether to write this. I run a small business — is this really something to put out in public?

But that wasn't the real hesitation.

The people who died believing it was for Japan — I have simply taken them for granted.
I have done nothing. Do I have any right to speak about this?

I have no answer. I am writing anyway.

When August comes, television and newspapers fill up with talk of "the postwar."
Every single year.

Japan lost the war, so it must admit its wrongs and settle its accounts.
War must never happen again.
That is what gets said.

That we should not go to war — I think that is right.
There is no reason for people to kill one another.
And yet, even as those words are being spoken,
somewhere in the world people are killing each other right now.
That is also true.

When I studied history at school, I cannot remember a single teacher
who spoke properly about that war.

Why did the war begin?
Why did Japan lose?

The parts I most wanted to know were always skipped over.
What I heard instead was how terrible the things Japan had done were,
and that this was why Japan lost.

There is an old saying: the winner is the imperial army, the loser is the rebel.
We lost, so whatever is said of us, we simply have to take it.
That is what I was taught. Eighty-one years of it now.
And every summer, the same thing again. Reflect on what you did.

There are things I would like to say back.
But I have looked nothing up and done nothing,
and if I answered back now it would only be borrowed words —
the same kind as the ones demanding my remorse.

Let me be honest: I dislike this time of year.
Every August it gets a little harder to breathe.

But in the end I always arrive at this.

That I can write what I like, make what I like,
and grumble while I am at it —
that is, without question, thanks to the people who lived through those years.

Those who fell far from home.
Those who stood up out of the ashes and built this country over again.

My day today rests on top of what they hoped for.

Whether I have the right to speak of it, I still do not know.
Even so, this year again, I will hold that gratitude close
and let myself pass through another summer.