Some of you have probably read about the torpedoes fired by a small Japanese submarine off Fort Clatsop near Astoria and Fort Columbia near Chinook, WA inside the bar of the Columbia. My father who recently died experienced the event while serving the early part of the Pacific WWII at Ft. Columbia. I remember visiting Fort Columbia several times to see the gun turrets and barracks. It is an interest place to visit on your way down to Long Beach to dig clams.

Oregon had the experience to be bombed many times during WWII, with the Bly incident, the Oregon coast balloon fire bombings and the Astoria events. One of my father's tasks was patrolling the northern Oregon coast for all kinds of balloon bombs, and looking for Japanese submarines which were off the WA and OR coast. Then he got his orders to advance across the Pacific ending up in Tokyo Bay.

In making a complete circle, one of my close friends in college and now, is a Japanese architect. I remember the first time that he visited my parents home, even though it had been 20 years since the war, it was difficult at first for my father to welcome a "past enemy" into his home. But time passes, and my father's service is remembered.

Amazing story. It's poetic justice they got to meet before they passed. I needed this.

But the little diatribe thrown in at the end threw me. There are plenty of heros and cowards to go around, during any war, no matter what the race or religion. As if there weren't atrocities committed by every side during WWII. Or any war. War is hell. Ask the Jews who survived Auschwitz, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the Americans sucker-punched in Pearl Harbor.

This story doesn't need to be twisted into a dittohead, Islam-o-fascist bogeyman rant.

"Lest we never forget": that pretty much fails not to omit leaving anything unsaid.

Yes, it doesn't.

TKreug, I had the same reaction. They should have stopped with the telling of the story. No need to add another word.