Creepy; drive by the site of a Japanese internment camp every day.
 

I was listening to a local radio talk show and one of the hosts was talking about he had never known about the existence of Japanese internment camps during WWII.

The other host said that there were a couple right here in AZ and one of them was in a town I drive through every day on my way to work in Phoenix, AZ.

I googled the camp and discovered that the Circle K gas station I filled up at this morning was where the camp once was...:shocked:

The Heart Mountain Relocation Center is about forty minutes from my house. Until it closed in 1946!, it was Wyoming's third largest city. HH

One of the students I took a study abroad to Japan with. His Grandparents spent the war in a internment camp

When they got to the camp they were not allowed to speak Japanese. His wife was sobbing not knowing where they were and just wanting to go back home. So as he tried to calm her down a bunch of soldiers dragged him out of the line and beat him in front of his wife and newborn and everyone else there and that was the last day for the rest of his life his grandfather ever spoke Japanese again

That is also the only story that his grandfather told him of their internment.

People assume that the camps wasn't that bad because it wasn't a death camp but I think it's because we as Americans want to hold ourselves to the moral high ground that everything we did as a nation was right and sometimes that makes us blind to our mistakes

I drive by Camp Sumter several times a year. It doesn't bother me. :dunno:

Not our finest hour.

Our county Jail here in Spokane housed some German US Citizens during the War. It's not creepy at all.

Believe we had some Italians over in Montana in camps too.

I used to date a girl who's Mother and Grandparents were in an internment camp in California . I heard stories about their experience . Life was tough but nobody beat them or physically abused them in any way .

America the not so beautiful.

A lot of guilt in this thread....

The whole world should feel guilty. It was an ugly time.

You're right. Where do I report to apologize?

My grandfather served as a music teacher in a German interment camp in Nebraska.

Two friends, now deceased, were interned in a camp for Japanese Americans. Their family lost their farm in Colorado. They became well educated, one serving as Chief Medical Officer and Coroner in Denver. Wonderful people.

While most internments were terribly unjust, I think it's important to see the internments in light of the threat at the time. I can envision a scenario where in a future war, internment or mass deportation may be reasonable.

It was not a mistake however, far from it.

Really now. :upeyes:

Precisely! It was called wartime and we were in a death struggle against a level of evil the world had seen very few times before.

I don't have any guilt unless we misallocated resources used for the camps that could have been used more effectively in the war effort.

My late father on an engineering trip to West Germany had hosts who served in LAH or maybe Totenkopf. After the tours of the day were over they'd all end up at the beer hall . My old man was no slouch but these guys could knock'em back as well as anybody.

Once they got into their cups and got a good buzz on, they would remember, and the only guilt they had over the war was that they LOST!

Are you saying that forcing thousands of American citizens to live in Interment camps, many of whom lost all their property, was not a mistake?

Yes, I am. It was war.


There was plenty of enemy activity on the west coast. Read and learn.

Sounds like that books is about intelligence from Japanese military intercepts and diplomatic channels. None of which points to Japanese Americans farmers in Oregon helping the Japanese military

I wasn't alive when this took place, so I have no educated comment. I will say it was a terrible time, but those incarcerated might very well have been executed in other countries.

This is a MUST Read:

In Defense of Internment: The Case for Racial Profiling in World War II and the War on Terror by Michelle Malkin
*

We need interment camps for SOME Muslims not all but those that burn our flag, kick em out or put em behind wire

:upeyes: Michelle Malkin is an utter moron.

And a plug for George Takei's new show. :supergrin: http://www.allegiancemusical.com/

Sounds like you need to read the book.

You guys are wasting your time. You're talking to people who had the good fortune to not be American citizens of Japanese descent living in America in the 1940's. If they had been, they might not be so quick with this smug "Mistake? What mistake?" BS.

Sound like you need to quote the passages of the book that support your arguments