WW2 vet returns personal flag to family of fallen Japanese..
Aug 18, 2017 12:59:15 GMT
lucyg, iamkristinl16, and 7 more like this
Post by Deleted on Aug 18, 2017 12:59:15 GMT
...soldier.
This was on NPR last night. Made me cry. Such an uplifting story about a flag during these times of flags of hate being venerated again. Here, a personal flag was returned to a family still alive to accept it. And two former enemies held hands.
"Tatsuya Yasue buried his face into the flag and smelled it. Then he held the 93-year-old hands that brought this treasure home, and kissed them.
Marvin Strombo, who had taken the calligraphy-covered Japanese flag from a dead soldier at World War II island battlefield 73 years ago, returned it Tuesday to the family of Sadao Yasue. They had never gotten his body or — until that moment — anything else of his.
Yasue and Tatsuya’s sister Sayoko Furuta, 93, sitting in her wheelchair, covered her face with both hands and wept silently as Tatsuya placed the flag on her lap. Strombo reached out and gently rubbed her shoulder.
“I was so happy that I returned the flag,” Strombo said. “I can see how much the flag meant to her. That almost made me cry ... It meant everything in the world to her.”
The flag’s white background is filled with signatures of 180 friends and neighbors in this tea-growing mountain village of Higashishirakawa, wishing Yasue’s safe return. The signatures helped Strombo find its rightful owners. "
www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/us-wwii-vet-in-japan-to-return-flag-to-fallen-soldier-family/2017/08/14/b223fcdc-814f-11e7-9e7a-20fa8d7a0db6_story.html
This was on NPR last night. Made me cry. Such an uplifting story about a flag during these times of flags of hate being venerated again. Here, a personal flag was returned to a family still alive to accept it. And two former enemies held hands.
"Tatsuya Yasue buried his face into the flag and smelled it. Then he held the 93-year-old hands that brought this treasure home, and kissed them.
Marvin Strombo, who had taken the calligraphy-covered Japanese flag from a dead soldier at World War II island battlefield 73 years ago, returned it Tuesday to the family of Sadao Yasue. They had never gotten his body or — until that moment — anything else of his.
Yasue and Tatsuya’s sister Sayoko Furuta, 93, sitting in her wheelchair, covered her face with both hands and wept silently as Tatsuya placed the flag on her lap. Strombo reached out and gently rubbed her shoulder.
“I was so happy that I returned the flag,” Strombo said. “I can see how much the flag meant to her. That almost made me cry ... It meant everything in the world to her.”
The flag’s white background is filled with signatures of 180 friends and neighbors in this tea-growing mountain village of Higashishirakawa, wishing Yasue’s safe return. The signatures helped Strombo find its rightful owners. "
www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/us-wwii-vet-in-japan-to-return-flag-to-fallen-soldier-family/2017/08/14/b223fcdc-814f-11e7-9e7a-20fa8d7a0db6_story.html
