The Sadness of Okinawa

About 60 years ago, Japan was in the World War Ⅱ. I feel especially sad about the war in Okinawa, because Okinawa has sadness in the past.

About 3 years ago, I had visited Okinawa on my high school trip. On the first day, I felt good for Okinawa. There were beautiful beach, clear blue sky and very kind people. Also, they cherished their tradition. However, after this, I will learn sadness in Okinawa.

On the next day, we went to the Tower of Himeyuri. It is the memorial cenotaph of people who died of the war in Okinawa. We heard the story of the war from woman who experienced the war. When she was a student, she was helping the Japanese army as a nurse. The story exceeded my imagination and it told the cruelty of the war. We heard her talk very seriously, so, there were people who had tears welling up in their eyes.

After that, we visited a museum of the war in Okinawa. There were a lot of pictures of young woman. They were killed in the war. It made me sad, because they seemed as young as me. Also, there were some articles left by them and their hand written diaries. We saw them quietly.

I thought that I knew about the war before, but I didn’t understand it. The war was more terrible than I thought. Okinawa has a lot of sadness in the past. That’s why Okinawa exists today. Beautiful beaches and kind people are symbols that get over the sad past of Okinawa.
I think that war is not good, but I think also if there wasn’t war, there isn’t peace of Okinawa now. We were learned importance of the peace by the war in the past.

We must not repeat the terrible war again. We must keep the World Peace.