President Obama Visits Hiroshima

In an event no one ever saw coming, President Obama became the first United States President to visit Hiroshima. It had been a long desire for him to do so and we at American Mishima are thankful that this historic moment has been made. Joined by Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, President Obama made the pilgrimage to Peace Memorial Park and laid a wreath for the the 125,000 people that died there from the Atomic Bomb dropped by the B-29 Enola Gay. This figure included mostly civilian men, women, children, a number of Koreans, and a dozen American POW's. This figure does not include the untold thousands that died later from radiation sickness. 

It is most poignant that for an American President to visit Hiroshima. Not to apologize, but to mourn those lives lost and speak of peace. We are pleased that the president met with three Hibakusha present and later spoke of the peace that was forged from this terrible weapon that unleashed its indescribable cruelty that was later repeated in Nagasaki. Japan and the United States have become the best of friends since those dark days near the end of WWII.

"That is why we come to this place. We stand here, in the middle of this city and force ourselves to imagine the moment the bomb fell. We force ourselves to feel the dread of children confused by what they see. We listen to a silent cry.

We remember all the innocents killed across the arc of that terrible war and the wars that came before and the wars that would follow. Mere words cannot give voice to such suffering, but we have a shared responsibility to look into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again.

Someday the voices of the Hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness, but the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade. That memory allows us to fight complacency. It fuels our moral imagination. It allows us to change. And since that fateful day, we have made choices that give us hope." - President Barrack Obama 2016.

Last Crewman of Enola Gay is Dead

69 years ago no one could have ever imagined the destructive weapon about to be unleashed upon the City of Hiroshima and its doomed inhabitants. But that was war and here we are today. So as Obon season comes to a close, the last surviving crewman of the infamous B-29 Enola Gay (which dropped the bomb over Hiroshima) Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk has passed away of natural causes at the age of 93.

Van Kirk flew many missions in North Africa and Europe against the Nazi's but it was his one mission against Japan that made him synonymous with the deaths of over 140,000 people and ending the war. He was once asked if he would do it again. His complex answer goes as such: "Under the same circumstances -- and the key words are 'the same circumstances' -- yes, I would do it again. We were in a war for five years. We were fighting an enemy that had a reputation for never surrendering, never accepting defeat. It's really hard to talk about morality and war in the same sentence. In a war, there are so many questionable things done. Where was the morality in the bombing of Coventry, or the bombing of Dresden, or the Bataan death march, or the Rape of Nanking, or the bombing of Pearl Harbor? I believe that when you're in a war, a nation must have the courage to do what it must to win the war with a minimum loss of lives." Van Kirk would write about this and many more detailed accounts of his experience in his book "My True Course." His passing marks another close for the Showa Era and that of those Hibakusha still alive.

First American Mishima Publication Published!

American Mishima is pleased to announce the arrival of our first Illustrated book Ichiro Dreams In Color which has now been published.It is our first illustrated book which we plan to have a Japanese version  いちろうのゆめ to be available later this fall of 2013. Ichiro is a short story originally written as a poem about a young Japanese boy who spends his afternoons dreaming of flight. But when his colorful imagination flies into the conflict of his grandparents generation, Ichiro must find a way to look up and dream again. This book is loosely based on the personal childhood experiences of the author Louis Rosas who grew up watching waves of Japanese Warplanes fly overhead his childhood home in Oxnard California while they filmed WWII dramas such as Baa Baa Blacksheep and The Winds of War during the late 1970's in the Post Viet-Nam Era. Ichiro is also inspired in part  by the experiences of Hiroshima survivor Suyeshi Kazu who witnessed the B-29 Enola Gay flying above her city before the bomb dropped into history. That being said in combining the two experiences into this one fictional short story, it made sense to take the authors story and set in Post War Japan of the 1970's instead of Oxnard California. If you do purchase and enjoy our book, please write a review for us on Amazon. We hope that you the reader of American Mishima will support this book and continue to follow this blog. Please enjoy! ありがとうございます!

For Purchase in the UK Please visit American Mishima on Amazon UK 

For Purchase in Germany American Mishima at Amazon Deutschland 

For Purchase in France American Mishima en Francais 

For Italy American Mishima Italia 

For Spain American-Mishima Espana' 

Para Mexico American Mishima en Mexico 

 日本での書籍購入のために訪問してください：Ichiro 

All other countries excluding Japan visit Amazon.com (add country code)

For Ichiro Dreams In Color Merchandise please visit:

American Mishima on Cafe Press!