Today marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of a momentous occasion. When the Emperor of Japan announced his nation’s surrender on August 15, 1945, the deadliest war in history finally drew to a close. And yet, given the challenges we face in the here and now, I am concerned this occasion will pass without much notice. Which leaves me musing.
Last summer at a writers’ conference, I heard a wonderful talk by Francine Rivers. One of many things she said that stuck with me was, “My stories often start from a question.”
I relate to that! My author journey was born when my husband showed me a paragraph in a WWII history book, a true account of a young Japanese woman who plotted to assassinate a former P.O.W. who had become a Christian missionary. But when she heard his message of the power of faith and forgiveness, it moved her so deeply she became a Christian instead.
That account raised questions that haunted me. Weren’t genteel Japanese ladies all about the softer arts—haiku and tea ceremonies? Why would this woman have wanted to assassinate a missionary? Those questions ultimately led me to my debut novel, The Plum Blooms in Winter. It was such a thrill to see that story become an award winner!
My current W.I.P., A Matter of Mind and Heart, releases September 7. You can register now for my V-J 75 giveaway drawing, and you’ll receive a free copy of this novelette on launch day! (More details below.) The story, also set against the backdrop of WWII, grapples with one of the most divisive questions of our day.
What does it mean to be an American? And why is America worth preserving?
I recently ran across a statement by Franklin D. Roosevelt which moved me to the core.
“The principle on which this country was founded and by which it has always been governed is that Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry.” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt, February 1, 1943
Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race or ancestry. – FDR, February 1, 1943 via @lthompsonbooks Click To TweetYes, exactly! At our best, we live out the “self-evident truth” that all people “are created equal… endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”
But much as I agree with the sentiment, I read FDR’s stirring words with a surge of outrage. Even as he wrote them, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans—80,000 of them U.S. citizens—languished in desolate concentrations camps thrown up as a result of his Executive Order 9066. He had signed that order less than a year before penning these words.
Nisei—second-generation Japanese Americans—recruited from those internment camps made a tremendous contribution to Allied victories in the Pacific and in Italy. And they’re not an isolated example. Black “Tuskegee Airmen.” Native American “code talkers” who enlisted from reservations. These people of color faced racial barriers we would never conceive of tolerating today. Yet they served with distinction and pride in every theater of the war.
Do America’s “self-evident truths” apply to some but not to others? If so, what makes her worth fighting for? When the nisei in A Matter of Mind and Heart sees action for the first time against Japan in the Pacific, he must come to grips with this question.
One answer was expressed very memorably by a group of men who spent most of WWII as prisoners of the Japanese army—the Doolittle Raiders captured in rural China in April 1942. These heroes inspired several of my characters in The Plum Blooms in Winter. Here they reflect on that experience:
“In the hundreds of lonely hours we spent trying to retain our sanity… one of the documents we remembered and recited to ourselves was the Declaration of Independence.
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…’
The meaning of those words really comes home to you when you are confined by a brutal enemy who totally reject the concept of individual liberty.”
– Four Came Home (Carroll V. Glines, 1995)
The U.S.A. is the longest-standing and most successful experiment with the idea that “we the people” are fit to govern ourselves. That government exists to serve its people—who are all equal before the law—and not the other way around. That we don’t need a privileged class born to rule over us, or an authoritarian central government to dictate what’s best for us.
Has this American experiment been perfect? Clearly not. But I contend it has only improved over time, as the ideals expressed in our founding documents have become real for more and more people. And I defy anyone to point to a system that works better for its constituents than this one does.
I’ll close with a reflection from actor and activist George Takei (of Star Trek fame), who spent years of his childhood in “relocation camps.”
“The U.S. proved itself big enough and confident enough to acknowledge [this] grave error and pay for it…. Many people… have a lot vested in one version of history that is more flattering to themselves and their legacies. Today, given the climate of fear and prejudice that has once more gripped our land, it is more important than ever that we remember the past truthfully.” – George Takei, February 2017
In honor of V-J 75, I’m teaming with acclaimed author Murray Pura to host a
Story Extravaganza Giveaway!
Prizes: 4 Classic Movies | 4 Gripping Novels
PLUS FREE short fiction just for entering! Eclipse of the Rising Sun includes two compelling short reads by two award-winning authors.
- A Matter of Mind and Heart by Linda Thompson
1944: U.S. Army linguist Rich Takahashi sees action against the Japanese for the first time on Roi Island. Recruited from a relocation camp for Japanese Americans, he grapples with a key question. Why should he put his life at risk for an America that robbed him of his future, and his family and his sweetheart of their freedom? - Uzura Seki—Black Sand by Murray Pura
1949: A young veteran of the Pacific war takes his girl to see John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima. Now he must face all the combat he fought through and survive it again in his mind—this time, with a woman who loves him at his side.
Prize drawing will take place on September 17. But everyone gets the short fiction eBook! You’ll find complete details here.
Linda Thompson stepped back from a corporate career that spanned continents to write what she loves—stories of unstoppable faith. Her debut novel, The Plum Blooms in Winter, is an O.C.W. Cascade Award winner and a finalist for several prestigious awards: Christy and Carol Awards, plus the International Book Award in two categories. Linda writes from the sun-drenched Arizona desert, where she lives with her husband, a third-generation airline pilot who doubles as her Chief Military Research Officer, one mostly-grown-up kid, and a small platoon of housecats. When Linda isn’t writing, you’ll find her rollerblading—yes, that does make her a throwback!—enjoying their first grandchild, or taking in a majestic desert moonrise.
