Why No Tears for American Victims of War?

I see you have been devoting page after page to tear-jerking stories about the Japanese who were moved to relocation camps in 1942.

Obviously, none of your writers was even born when these events took place, and they can not fathom the fear and hatred that the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor aroused, as well as the invasion of the Philippines and wanton cruelty such as the beheading of my fraternity brother during the Bataan “Death March.”

Whether the relocation was warranted or not, I do not know. I am inclined to think we acted too hastily. Perhaps, my thinking is a bit colored by the fact that I fought beside the Nisei 100th Battalion in Italy, and considered them the greatest fighting team in any army.

However, I think the awarding of $20,000 to each survivor of the relocation camps is a gross miscarriage of justice.

Unlike the Japanese, who were moved to barracks with their families, I was separated from my wife, had to give up my job, sell my car and rent the home we had just bought. For 16 weeks I lived in barracks far more barren than those in which the Japanese were interned and subjected to discipline far more rugged than your writers are weeping over for the Japanese.

Then I was sent to Africa and Italy and served as a scout in a frontier infantry company during a year of combat. Twenty-three of us joined our company just off the Anzio beachhead in May, 1944. Only two of us were left at the end of the war.

What was my reward for serving my country, suffering exposure and laying my life on the line? Not $20,000!

A generous government allowed me to retain my $10,000 GI life insurance policy, so long as I paid the premiums on it--which I have for 50 years. Then, to show its gratitude for my lost and dangerous years, when I turned 70 this beneficent government reduced the face value of my insurance from $10,000 to $5,000--but didn’t reduce the premiums one cent!

I’ve come to the conclusion that it is far better to be an enemy of the United States than to fight for it.

JOHN S. WILLIAMS, Newport Beach