Imagine! If only....

...Islam were not involved in the Middle East!

In early summer, 1947, I was on a troop ship bound from Manila, P.I. to San Francisco - by way of Okinawa and Yokohama.

At Okinawa, I remember only some small trucks that pulled up on the dock alongside our ship. We were not long in the port of Naha - just time enough to pick up some other G.I.s bound for San Francisco. I remember local girls climbing onto the back of the truck and, under their dresses, we could see they were wearing G.I., olive drab colored boxer shorts. I yearned for a place where girls wore pink panties!

The night before we arrived in Yokohama, our dinner was some sort of big, link sausage, which almost no one ate. We were probably a bit seasick. Anyway, many sausages were thrown away. On the high seas, troop ships threw their edible garbage overboard. But we were in Japanese territory, and could not dump anything. The next morning we were served pancakes. They were not very good, either, and many were thrown in the garbage.

When we had docked, small boats which looked like very large rowboats, slid in between the dock and the fantail of our ship. (The General A. W. Greely). Our soldiers who were on KP carried big (perhaps 30-gallon) stainless steel pots filled with the edible garbage that had accumulated since we had entered Japanese waters. These "garbage cans" were lined up on deck, alongside the rail.

Japanese workers from the small garbage boats, came on board our troopship and started dumping our garbage over the rail, into the waiting boats. A number of Japanese men gathered on the dock to watch. As soon as the first can of pancakes and sausages hit the boat, these men jumped into the small boats. With garbage raining down on them, they began to stuff both their shirts and their mouths with sausages and pancakes.

When they had eaten all they could eat, and their shirts were stuffed to capacity, they climbed back onto the dock and ran away. It was clear that these people were starving, and they apparently had friends or family somewhere who were also starving.

From that 1947 scene, fast-forward a couple of decades where you will see the Japanese enjoying one of the world's strongest economies. The Japanese people, who so enjoy absolute freshness in their food, live once again as a highly civilized people.

Remember, now, that these were the only people in the world who have experienced the horror of an atom bomb.

But the Japanese, not strangled by some religious ideology that had taught only hatred, went about the business of rebuilding their country. They did a magnificent job of it.

Now fly around the world to Iraq. Coalition forces invaded. Sadam was overthrown in a few days. Rebuilding of the country was undertaken. But Islamic extremists quickly tore down everything that was rebuilt. They permitted neither Coalition nor Iraqi workers to restore power and water, or rebuild any of their infrastructure.

Then followers of the various branches of Islam, started killing each other. Uncounted hundreds have died - for no reason, other than religious bigotry.

Imagine how Iraq would look today if this had not happened. Imagine Iraq without Islam!