War… what is it good for? To serve the interest and egos of those who seek power rather than to protect the interests of those who they are supposed to be serving?
Maybe we’ll never know, but what we do know is that it takes the lives of our sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, family, and friends.
If U.S. Marine Marvin Strombo and Sadao Yasue met at a bar instead of on the battlefield then perhaps their encounter would have ended in friendship instead of Strombo finding Yasue’s dead body on the battlefield.
Nonetheless, when Strombo did encounter Yasue’s body he decided that he would honor him as a friend instead of an enemy.
According to REUTERS, when Yasue, the eldest of six children from a Japanese farming town, entered World War II, he followed the tradition of carrying a Japanese flag covered with messages and signatures from loved ones into battle with him.
The Japan Times reports that the flag was filled with calligraphy and 180 signatures from his tea-growing mountain village of Higashishirakawa wishing for his safe return.
Strombo became separated from his platoon and stumbled across Yasue’s body in 1944 after a battle on the island of Saipan. He saw the flag peeking out from his uniform.
“You know, I knew it was sacred to him and special. I finally realized that if I didn’t take it, somebody else would have and it would be lost forever,” a 93-year-old Strombo said in a recent interview. “So the only way I could do that, as I reached out to take the flag, I made a promise to him that some day I would try to return it.”
And 73 years laters, he finally fulfilled that promise.
Strombo didn’t know how to return the flag until five years ago when he found an agency, the Obon Society, that helps U.S. veterans return artifacts to relatives. That group helped him track down Yasue’s family.
Earlier this month, Strombo traveled from Montana to Japan to meet Yasue’s family. Strombo said Yasue’s family was overwhelmed with emotion when he handed them the flag. Yasue’s sister silently wept with her hand in her face and her brother kissed Strombo’s hands.
Their family never got Yasue’s body back. They never knew how he died. He just never returned.
The flag and Strombo’s story would be the only clues they had about the end of his life. The flag would be all that they had.
“It smelled like my good old big brother, and it smelled like out mother’s home cooking we age together,” Yasue’s brother Tatsuya Yasue said. “The flag will be our treasure. It’s like the war has finally ended and my brother can come out of limbo.”
Strombo said he was touched to see how happy Yasue’s brother and sister were to have the flag returned to them.
“I saw her holding that flag, about broke my heart, you know,” he told Reuters. “That’s the reason I was glad I returned it too.”
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