US sacrifices still mark Asia-Pacific strategy
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[By Liu Rui/Global Times ] |
A friend of mine who has been working for years in the Philippines told me that Manila, the nation's capital, has one particularly expensive area. Imelda Marcos, the shoe-collecting wife of the country's former dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, paid nearly $5,000 per month for a 200 square meter apartment there.
It's a very modern-looking part of the town, with skyscrapers, trees, lawns, and clean buildings as well as spacious streets. If you visited there without going to the old city, the Philippines would look like a developed nation.
But it has its own history. The Manila American Cemetery and Memorial is located there. During World War II, 17,097 American military men were buried there, most of whom were in their 20s or 30s.
I have been to similar cemeteries for American servicemen in Luxemburg, Belgium and Hawaii, but this one in Manila is larger than any of them.
The whole cemetery is located on a hill in the southeastern part of the capital, with five concentric circles. The top circle is a round corridor, with a number of walls.
The names, ranks and hometowns of 36,286 officers and soldiers were marked on the walls. The names of those who won medals are colored in bronze.
The day I went to the cemetery was April 9, Bataan Day in the Philippines, when they remember those who died for the country. On that day 69 years ago, Japanese troops attacked Filipino and US troops on the islands, eventually occupying the Philippines and beginning a brutal three-year military occupation in which over a million Filipinos died.
In October 1944, the US returned to the islands, eventually driving out the Japanese in July of 1945. Some 450,000 Japanese were annihilated in the battle but with the sacrifice of 62,000 US lives.
Like many other tourists, I walked though the marble crosses, closely looking at the names marked on them. As it was a weekend, the cemetery had a few visitors. A young man not afar from me was looking for the best location to take pictures. A couple was wheeling their baby carriage slowly on a relaxing walk. Some high school students were taking notes and holding a fierce discussion.
Will every Filipino recall the battles over 60 years ago when they look at the greeneries around the cemetery? How do they view the US today?
