I was visiting the Japanese lady I wrote about here just recently when the talked turned to the situation in Afghanistan. She had some of her Japanese friends over, as well as her Chinese friend, and to a person they were appalled by what was happening, as who isn't, I guess.
But their take on it struck me as very interesting. What shocked them was that Americans were left behind as we retreated.
What about the American ideal of "No man left behind"? they asked. How could you betray that? And to my surprise, they referenced the movies Saving Private Ryan, Blackhawk Down and, especially, Bat 21.
It never would have occurred to me in a million years that these old Oriental ladies, none younger than her early 70s, would have ever even seen such movies as these, let alone remember them and relate them to contemporary world events. But they did. While making passing references to the first two movies, it was Bat 21 that they really talked about. I remember watching it on TV with my dad and brothers when I was a kid and my dad saying it was a good movie. The movie, as I recalled it, was gripping but routine -- a guy trapped behind enemy lines and the efforts made to rescue him.
But to these ladies who grew up in an East Asian culture with an entirely different attitude toward the individual in society, these were revolutionary films and Bat 21, I guess because of its focus on one individual, had made a special and lasting impression. The Japanese women recalled the Pacific War and how the Japanese military had abandoned hundreds of thousands of Japanese troops, leaving them to starve to death, making no effort to rescue them, just turning away and leaving them to their fate, while the American military would spare no effort to rescue just one single person. They marveled at that, and admired it. Such a country that cared so much for the lives of each one of its citizens was extraordinary.
I knew during the Pacific War we as a matter of course rescued downed airmen, flying in search of them with sea planes and float planes. My own grandfather was rescued by a PBY after he was shot down at sea during the Guadalcanal campaign. But the Japanese made no effort to rescue a Japanese airman shot down at sea and surviving. He was expected to die, one way or the other, for the Emperor.
So these women had expected the US military to do whatever it took, no matter the cost, to get every single American out of Afghanistan. It did not occur to them that they would simply be abandoned. Not by America! So they were shocked, appalled, disbelieving, by what took place. And then disgusted and angry. Where were the US Marines?
Well, the Iwo Jima was offshore with elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, along with the Ronald Reagan, but the jarheads stayed aboard. No rescue ordered.
I sensed that these old ladies, each of whom had emigrated to this country from her native land because they saw it as clearly better, not in material things -- after all, Japan and China are at least as advanced in material things as the United States -- but in moral stature, in possessing a superior civilization.
Watching those old movies had first made them aware that there was a country where the life of the individual person was truly important and would be protected even at great cost to the nation. They believed this was a fundamental part of what America was. No man left behind. To us, it's just a slogan, maybe mere boiler plate. But to them it was a revolutionary assertion defying the great lords of the earth who trampled on "the masses" at will.
And now they saw all that they believed America to be betrayed. They could not believe it. And they were shaken. Was America becoming just another despotic regime? Why? What happened? They looked to me for answers.
I had none.
