Happy liberation day! Happy reoccupation day!
This year we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the landing of marines and soldiers at Hågat and Assan on July 21, 1944. Probably millions of words have been written about this event and its significance. Certainly millions of stories have been told and retold. The day became known as Liberation Day.
For the first 20 years of Liberation Day commemoration, the focus was on the military battles. There were rousing parades and when the Marines passed by, they were greeted with loud applause.
The Marine Corps anthem sent shivers through the crowd. Most of the pictures in the newspaper supplements were of soldiers in combat. There were a few floats and reenactments that illustrated the occupation’s brutality toward the occupied.
In the 30th year, the focus began to be on the CHamoru experience and the question of the meaning of liberation began to be raised.
What were people liberated from and for what? One could sense that the post-World War II generation was beginning to ask serious questions about political liberation and raised the issues related to the massive land seizure immediately after the original “liberation.”
Constitutional issues and political status movements took center stage and have been with us ever since. There was something that has now largely been forgotten about on the 40th anniversary. A Japanese naval unit was invited to participate.
To my knowledge, this was the first time a Japanese military unit appeared. They marched with the Rising Sun and had the sword of their commanding officer in their hand. There was stunned silence. No one booed and no one cheered.
The 50th anniversary was perhaps the most significant in terms of bringing all the events together. Over a thousand war veterans returned to the shores of Guam.
They were treated with the respect they deserved for their sacrifices in retaking the island from the Japanese. The CHamoru generation from World War II was still there in their thousands. The memorial wall overlooking the Asan Bay peak brought the two experiences together in name. I called it the meeting of two liberation groups at the inauguration of this wall.
Since then, the tone has been largely nostalgic, with the focus clearly on the CHamoru experience. Nostalgia is actually a feeling about the past, not concrete memories.
Today, there are monuments in almost every village commemorating the tragic challenges of camping at Manenggon and working at the airfield in Halaguak. As time passes, survivors grow older and during the occupation they grow younger, and the stories need to be retold rather than heard directly from those who were there.
We have written volumes and many pictures. We also have an extensive collection of interview projects from students, family members and Rlene Steffy. Rlene’s work will inevitably and rightly become the document of our people’s lives during the war. We should all be grateful for her efforts.
But I am most grateful that I can only remember the events and not have to take part in them myself. I was the only one in my family who was born after the war. My parents survived the occupation as a young couple in their early 30s who lost two young children during the occupation.
My other siblings had different memories. Their stories were both terrifying and inspiring, sad and funny at the same time. They all had a sarcastic sense of humor that showed humanity even in the most difficult situations.
I like to say that I am not a survivor of war, but a survivor of war stories. That is exactly the kind of comment my parents and siblings would like to hear. I am a grateful recipient of war stories, not memories. Kon respetu, hu saluda siha.
Use Fabot.
