By Robert M. Katzman © September 12, 2015  

(Revised: Memorial Day May 31, 2021)

My Father fought the Japanese

Born before the Navahos were citizens

Born before women could vote

Before Hirohito, Yamamoto and Tojo

Before Meir, Dayan and Herzl

Before Eisenhower, Patton and FDR

Were names on anyone’s lips

*

Packed into trains of troop ships

Crossing the Pacific Ocean

To avenge Pearl Harbor treachery

To kill people he didn’t know

Bombed sending messages by telegraph

He died with steel shrapnel

Still in his body

Half a century later

*

In the Battle of Leyte Gulf

History’s greatest naval engagement

Which no one now remembers

My father saw a speck in the sky

The speck became

A Japanese Kamikaze plane

A suicide flight loaded with bombs

Aiming directly for his ship

Impossible to stop it

It missed by mere inches

My father saw the pilot’s smiling face

As the doomed plane of death

Slammed into the waves

Disappearing beneath the sea

*

What do you do with your life after that?

That long war was the peak of his existence

His Mt. Fuji of drama, terror and bravery

Nothing could match it

A life stretching out flat as

The American Prairies

Never finding the right work

The right girl

The right life

*

I have a tattered Japanese battlefield flag

He saved for an unborn son

But life turns unexpected corners

His curious son

Born on the fifth anniversary

Of Adolph Hitler’s death

Wanted to know

Everything about

The Japanese and the Jews

*

Who they were, who was I

Though Jews remain

Merely a sliver in numbers

Perhaps fifteen million world-wide

Compared to one hundred million Japanese

*

I discovered we were both Asian peoples

Where else would Israel be?

Parked near the center of Asia

The crossroads of history’s armies

Japan an island surrounded by ocean

Nearly six thousand miles

From Jerusalem to Tokyo

Yet we were both Asian

*

Both dark-eyed dark-haired people

Smaller in stature than many others

Both our alphabets written right to left

Both languages spoken

Exactly as written

So unlike incomprehensible

French

*

I wanted to know everything

Both so creative within their limitations

The Japanese trapped on their island

The Jews landless and roaming

Both wrote everything down

Ink more precious than gold

So similar in capturing ideas

Both sealing Time on scrolls

*

I learned about Jewish and Japanese

Architects and artists

Both creating imaginative buildings

In wood, stone, metal and glass

Both creating delicate watercolors

Music central to both of us

In tragic opera and magic Broadway

About matzo ball and miso soup

Brisket and teriyaki

*

I wanted to be a cowboy

Then saw a book about the Samurai

Warriors as works of art

War as ritual and honor

A thousand years of Japan’s Dance of Death

Their helmets, their armor, their swords

Leaving Roy Rogers and John Wayne

Their Winchesters and their Colts

In the dust

Samurais!

Wow!

*

My Father watched me learning

Sending me to art school

Private school

Prizing education over anything else

Listening proudly to all I learned

*

I listened to his stories of war

Of his parents dangerous

Escape from Europe

About being one out of many

And the very real dangers

Even here in America

Of being just one, out of so many

*

He was confounded by

My alternate life

Of music and art and books

Watching me acquire understanding

Of history’s flow

And our determined place in it

Living in a way as a witness

That another life was possible

Even if not for him

*

He protected me and paved my way

When he died in my arms

Hirohito, Yamamoto and Tojo

Meir, Dayan and Herzl

Eisenhower, Patton and FDR

Were no longer names on anyone’s lips

Fame swiftly disappearing in the flow

But he knew I would remember

Not as a warrior like he was

But as a writer

A storyteller, like he was

Preserving History’s past

*

To my Father, Israel

Sergeant Israel Katzman:

Wherever and whatever you are now

Perhaps floating cosmic energy

Somewhere in the Universe

I so hope you found

The peace and tranquility

You never found

on Earth

*

Arigato

Todah Rabah

Thank you

Sayonara

Shalom

Good-bye

**************************************************************

Note: My father’s obituary as it appeared in the Chicago Tribune, May 22, 2000, after a Reporter called me:

As of March 17, 2017, my father has been joined in death by his brother Milt, sister Mollie, and his daughter–my older sister –Bonnie. Rest in peace, all of you.