Letter: Comfort women statue is appropriate

Re: “Mayor reopens statue tiff,” Oct. 3. I hold the Glendale News-Press’ accuracy by my score quite high. Then we learn things by the spoken word of others and the age-old game of “telephone” steps in. The greater the number of “telephone” connections, the less likely that accuracy will prevail. So when I read a story concerning how the mayor of Glendale found his way to a reporter from a “far right” channel I am already going “huh?”

Now the lead to this front-page article was “Glendale was wrong to install controversial monument honoring Korean sex slaves taken by the Japanese Army during World War II, Mayor Dave Weaver said.”

Mayor Weaver upheld the facts that these women were taken by the Japanese Army and that they were sex slaves. What Mayor Weaver thinks it did wrong was “install a controversial monument ‘ to them. Weaver goes on to say Glendale is the most hated city in Japan, then laughingly suggests that Korean/Japanese demographics are the reason for “the biggest play.”

I find this beautiful tribute statue appropriate because these women suffered. Not because they were Korean. Not because their assailants were Japanese. Not because it was World War II, but because it should not be repeated.

Go to Pearl Harbor. Take a Sunday 7 a.m. harbor tour. Stand on the deck of the Arizona where hundreds of sailors have been interred since Dec. 7, 1941 and visit the Punch Bowl Cemetery, which is the final resting place for thousands upon thousands of American soldiers that died fighting Japan. I wonder how the Japanese feel about Honolulu? I’ve been to the Punch Bowl. I’ve stood on the Arizona Memorial. I have been afloat in Pearl Harbor. I will be going this week to pay my respects to the “Comfort Women” statue, Mayor Weaver.

Tim Jagoe
La Crescenta