Love Is Never Forgotten

The battle of Iwo Jima was one of the deadliest and most horrific battle the United States had with Japan. Estimated that 7,000 U.S soldiers lost their lives, and 20,000 more were wounded, and for Japan, they lost about 21,000 men. War is a terrible thing. It changes the most well-mannered gentlemen, into raging monsters carrying items that are used to kill.

On Sunday September 20, 2009 there was an article in the "New York Times," titled "With Love, From Iwo Jima." In this article, a man by the name of Franklin W. Hobbs III was a man who was orphaned at ten and lived with his wealthy grandparents. While at Harvard, he was forced to drop out because he was enlisted in the army, where he fought in Iwo Jima. When he was in Iwo Jima, Hobbs was walking on the island with his partner Schnarr who was a school teacher. While walking with him, Hobbs stumbled across a dead Japanese soldier who was lying lifelessly by a cave. Interestingly, Hobbs noticed that the man had no wounds on his body. No bullet wounds no mortar wounds; NOTHING! What caught Hobbs' eye, was a white envelope sticking out of the dead soldiers chest pocket. In it contained a drawing of children, and a photograph of a little baby girl.

The Japanese soldier's name, was Matsuji Takegawa. Unfortunately, he was sent over seas and never got to meet the baby girl in the photograph. Matsuji told his wife to name the daughter Yoko, which means "ocean child." Growing up, Yoko never thought of her father as a honorable man, in fact she almost ignored his existence and only acknowledged "his government pension pain for her schooling." Yoko's dream was always to go to the United States, and when she was 28, she left Japan and settled in New York City where she got married and had a baby girl. Later though she divorced her husband and struggled financially.

Decades after the war, Hobbs never forgot about the envelope he had found in the soldiers pocket. It was all framed and hung up in his son's room. When one of Hobbs' Japanese friends was going to Japan, he gave her the envelope to take with her to see if the envelope and the picture could find the family it belonged to. Amazingly, the envelope managed to find the Takegawa household.

While in New Jersey, Yoko gets a phone call from older sister Chie. Chie told Yoko that the envelope of her father was sent to their house. Yoko was shocked and went to Japan. Before Yoko was united with the letter, she said, "'My daddy carried the letter with my picture in his body, in his bosom." Then she says, "I felt something, a spirit, come down in my body. This is treasure, a treasure carried so much love to me. Before, i go to school with his money. But no, he sends his love to me." If it was not for Franklin W. Hobbs III, Yoko would still have those inaccurate thoughts about her father.

In this article, human nature is shown as a loving uniting form. Hobbs did not have to take the time to find the family that the envelope belonged to, but his good nature invoked him to go out and do what was right. Yoko realized after meeting with Hobbs, that her father kept that envelope containing her picture, as close to his heart as possible. This showed Yoko that her father really loved her and she realized the true meaning of her father, not just the fact she was going to school. Before, Hobbs and Yoko's father would be pointing guns at one another, but today they would hug and socialize. Yoko represented her father when Hobbs met her for the first time.

Andrew Leffler