John Fortier is a Korean War Veteran, Peace Activist and a husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather and a retired school teacher. He has conducted this peace vigil each week since U.S. President George W. Bush started the Iraq War in March, 2003, in addition to the Afghanistan War President Bush started in 2001.
This peace vigil is held at the busy intersection of Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and Knob Hill in Redondo Beach (Los Angeles area), California.
As occasionally happens during a peace vigil, a driver will make an emotional shoutout objecting to some aspect of the peace vigil and then drive-off with no further discussion. John describes such an occurrence and addresses the issue the shoutout raised.
It takes courage and persistence to do what John does in conducting these peace vigils at a time when most Americans are apathetic to what the U.S. Government and its war machine are doing.
Hi Dick,
Without trying to relate any particular comment to any particular person, I'll say this: for the last couple of weeks the general nature of remarks from pedestrians has been more positive, their questions less adversarial, more encouraging and supportive.
That said, I did have - I think I had - a glaring exception to all that. Last night a fellow turned right from Knob Hill to PCH directly in front of me. I noticed the passenger window was lowering as he turned, and as he completed his turn he leaned over, looked at me, and shouted that, 'tomorrow's Pearl Harbor, the day they bombed Pearl Harbor'. I just had time to yell back that, ' they were goaded into it', which I'm quite sure he could hear but even more sure that, if he understood what I said, he sure as hell disagreed with it.
The war with Japan was, in my opinion, a total and completely avoidable tragedy. The staggering losses might be considered justified had it warned us of and deterred us from ever attempting to make a point and resolve our differences by killing each other. It not only did not do that, it introduced a new and more horrific way to kill others - the atomic bomb.
Being the first to use that monstrous weapon has branded us, U.S., as the initiators of greater destroyers of life that the world had ever suffered. And the fact that we used two of those wholesale murdering destroyers removed any doubt that there might have been an inkling of regret for what we had done with the first one.
It has come up several or more times with pedestrians on the corner that, in their opinions, World War 2 was the last or most justified war we have been in. If they're willing to stay and have a conversation about it, I think more than half, maybe most, end up conceding that there were numerous extenuating circumstances, and the U.S. was not the innocent victim we have declared and presented ourselves to be.
It's a shame that amid the chaos of a teetering/collapsing public education system we have such superficial-incomplete-misleading-prejudiced presentations of history that nearly everything I bring up about WW 2 that differs from the full-on
4th of July rhetoric of our triumph over the evil 'sneak attackers' comes as a complete surprise/shock to them. And I'm not talking about the reaction of youngsters, though they're included, but to articulate, conscientious citizens who are aware and concerned about the wars we're in now and have been since WW 2. It is appalling, and most are resentful that they are as ignorant as they are as the result of our manipulation by our government/schools.
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