Karma?, Fate? or Destiny?
Is it karma, fate or destiny if a person
survives a nuclear bomb attack, only to be bombed again three days later and
survive again? Sounds unbelievable but supposedly
there were 165 such people in Japan. One
of the best known survivors and recognized by the Japanese government as having
done so is Tsutomo Yamaguchi. He was working in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped there. Having survived though injured he returned to his hometown of Nagasaki in time to be there for the bomb attack there. A British
comedy show in 2010 called him the unluckiest man who ever lived. That has to be a matter of perspective. While his ear drums were ruptured, and he was
temporarily blinded and seriously burnt on one side of the upper half of his
body. He had had two children by his
wife, who was also a survivor of the Nagasaki blast and lived to the age of
93. He ultimately died of stomach cancer
and had other nuclear related health issues.
The article I read on him said he lived an otherwise healthy life until
his death on January 4, 2010.
While we are speaking of Japan, long term
survivors seem to be the norm not the exception. Another famous Japanese survivor was Hiroo
Onoda who was still fighting World War II until he finally surrendered after
twenty-nine years in the jungles on the island of Lubang in the Philippines. He and his men(all of whom had died or
surrendered) had killed 30 people and wounded 100 over the years. The
Philippine government pardoned him for his war crimes. He surrendered March 9,
1974. After surrendering he returned to
Japan and could not adjust to the changes. He moved to Brazil in 1984
and died January 16, 2014 at the age of 91. So he spent almost forty years as
the last known fighter of World War II. You can Google more details on both these stories.
As time goes on there are many stories of
survival that happened by strange circumstances on 9/11. Just as there are many stories of heroic
deaths. I was in Bayonne, NJ unloading
that morning and saw the first plane hit. Rather than block traffic I left and
headed to Bloomsbury, NJ. Trying to find
out the details I tuned in a local NYC radio station. The announcer reported he had been advised to
leave the building as he was in the other tower. He said he was going to keep reporting as
long as he could. Shortly later the
station I was listening to went dead. It was not till I reached the truck stop
that I found out that his decision had probably cost him his life. I don’t know
his name, but he is one victim I can relate too.
It may sound strange but while many lost
friends because of 9/11, I made one.
Shortly after 9/11 many Americans were ready to kill anybody that looked
like and Arab or a Muslim. One of the
drivers from my company was/is a Sikh.
Sikh’s wear turbans and to the most Americans that automatically meant
Muslim. There is an irony to that as many
Muslims don’t get along with Sikh’s. One
day when we were unloading at the same place I met Arminder, he is an Indian(like
from India) Sikh, he related to me how he had been persecuted and threatened
many times since 9/11. Anyhow we hit it
off and often traveled together in the time we worked together after 9/11.
In January 2004 I had the Big One. I had
died technically but they bought me back which explains my fascination with
survivors. The government cancelled my
CDL(Commercial Driver’s License) and basically put me out of business. It has been ten years since I quit driving
but Arminder has been my steadfast friend during that time.
Another survivor story I like is from my
time in Vietnam. I did not see it happen
but had it related to me by somebody who was there. A platoon of the 101st,(about 40
men) were taking a lunch break on the side of a hill overlooking a rice
paddy. While they were eating a
Vietnamese with a pouch over his shoulder came walking through the rice paddy
on a line parallel to their position.
One of the men was assigned to shoot the courier and he missed. The courier started high stepping across the
paddy. Suddenly all forty people were
shooting at him and the water around him started churning like a washer from
all the rounds. He really started moving
then. The guy that told me about it said
it was almost as if he were running on the water. Finally he chucked the pouch
and started running like an Olympian. He
finally made it to the wood line on the other end of the field. When they sent
people down to recover the pouch they found he was definitely a courier. They never found the courier so it is assumed
he survived the ordeal.
Not all stories are about survivors
though. A squad of the 101st
were on patrol and moving along a stream.
Suddenly they heard sounds of people laughing and cutting up. The stream went over a cliff making a
waterfall, and at the base of the waterfall was a horseshoe shaped gorge. about
twenty Vietnamese were bathing and relaxing.
The Americans formed a half moon arch around the top and each took two
grenades and on signal pitched them into the gorge. There were a few shouts as
the grenades started going off. A moment
later only silence. All the Vietnamese
were dead.
The events of 9/11 showed me that it is
not just in the military that a person’s fate can change in a moment. Life is fleeting at best and its ultimate
path is known to none. The attack of
9/11 may have been by people in civilian clothes, but it was a well-planned and
methodical destruction of human life.
The reality of radical Islam was shown to America. The question is how do we respond to it and
more important how do we overcome it? Is it Satanical?
The only viable solution I see is to convince
the world of the evil it is facing. It
is not hard to show. Then there has to be a consequence for fomenting or
tolerating evil. South Africa was forced
to abandon apartheid with sanctions. The whole world needs to turn its back on
any and all nations tolerating and advocating radical Islam. Where do all their
guns and ammunition come from? How can they travel with immunity unless someone
enables them? There are a lot of questions. The world needs to step up and
cut off the supply lines of evil. No
army travels without logistics. Even the
9/11 terrorists had people providing them means to do what they did. They did not do it as an out of pocket
expense. Even if they did it required someone else to line their pockets with
the means.
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