John Fortier is a Korean War Veteran, Peace Activist and a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and a retired school teacher. He has conducted this peace vigil each week since U.S. President George W. Bush started the Iraq War in March, 2003, in addition to the Afghanistan War President Bush started in 2001.
This peace vigil is held at the busy intersection of Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and Knob Hill in Redondo Beach (Los Angeles area), California.
As occasionally happens during a peace vigil, a driver will make an emotional shoutout objecting to some aspect of the peace vigil and then drive-off with no further discussion. John describes such an occurrence and addresses the issue the shoutout raised.
It takes courage and persistence to do what John does in conducting these peace vigils at a time when most Americans are apathetic to what the U.S. Government and its war machine are doing.
Hi Dick,
Without
trying to relate any particular comment to any particular person, I'll say
this: for the last couple of weeks the general nature of remarks from
pedestrians has been more positive, their questions less adversarial, more
encouraging and supportive.
That
said, I did have - I think I had - a glaring exception to all that. Last night
a fellow turned right from Knob Hill to PCH directly in front of me. I noticed
the passenger window was lowering as he turned, and as he completed his turn he
leaned over, looked at me, and shouted that, 'tomorrow's Pearl Harbor, the day
they bombed Pearl Harbor'. I just had time to yell back that, ' they were
goaded into it', which I'm quite sure he could hear but even more sure that, if
he understood what I said, he sure as hell disagreed with it.
The
war with Japan was, in my opinion, a total and completely avoidable tragedy.
The staggering losses might be considered justified had it warned us of and
deterred us from ever attempting to make a point and resolve our differences by
killing each other. It not only did not do that, it introduced a new and more
horrific way to kill others - the atomic bomb.
Being
the first to use that monstrous weapon has branded us, U.S., as the initiators
of greater destroyers of life that the world had ever suffered. And the fact
that we used two of those wholesale murdering destroyers removed any doubt that
there might have been an inkling of regret for what we had done with the first
one.
It
has come up several or more times with pedestrians on the corner that, in their
opinions, World War 2 was the last or most justified war we have been in.
If they're willing to stay and have a conversation about it, I think more
than half, maybe most, end up conceding that there were numerous extenuating
circumstances, and the U.S. was not the innocent victim we have declared and
presented ourselves to be.
It's
a shame that amid the chaos of a teetering/collapsing public education system
we have such superficial-incomplete-misleading-prejudiced presentations of
history that nearly everything I bring up about WW 2 that differs from the
full-on
4th
of July rhetoric of our triumph over the evil 'sneak attackers' comes as a
complete surprise/shock to them. And I'm not talking about the reaction of
youngsters, though they're included, but to articulate, conscientious citizens
who are aware and concerned about the wars we're in now and have been since WW
2. It is appalling, and most are resentful that they are as ignorant as they
are as the result of our manipulation by our government/schools.
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