If a soldier voluntarily lays down his arms as a matter of conscience and is willing to suffer the consequences, SO BE IT.  Ehren Watada did not wait for a favorable public consensus to determine the dictates of his conscience.  If the action of a soldier is dependent on the guarantee of public support then his commitment becomes suspect.  And if we encourage our troops to jeopardize their military status to compensate for OUR (citizens of America) FAILURE to hold our government responsible for its ill-conceived misdeeds, it would be tantamount to expecting the victim to pay for his victimization.  We, who suffered the indignities imposed by our government in 1942, know that story very well.           

If a few Germans had not followed the goose-stepping of a madman, there would not have been a Holocaust.  If a few Kamikaze pilots had questioned the manifest destiny of the Rising Sun, we would not have had a Pearl Harbor.  If a crewman on the Enola Gay had challenged the necessity of an Atomic blast on civilians, we would not have had a Hiroshima or a Nagasaki.  It only takes a FEW good men to determine the course of history.  Sadly, there have been TOO FEW in recent history.  The goose-stepping continues, even in the editorial pages of our ethnic vernaculars.

So, 1^st Lt. Ehren Watada will not win any medals for his extraordinary act of conscience and moral integrity, but sometimes IT TAKES GREATER COURAGE TO LIVE FOR ONES COUNTRY, THAN TO DIE FOR IT.       

yosh kuromiya    10-07-06