koreanwarvetama [they/them]

Yeah, they tend to be like that.

That's what I figure. It is unfortunately very real :(. I'd like to provide more proof but that's not in my ability right now (from promising him and also because I'm not in a good spot in case there is backlash). Might be a big headline on some socialist papers within the next decade though, so keep an eye out assuming we all live till then...

I like to assume I've done pretty well. Though I definitely have a lot of problems from my upbringing.

What was his reaction to your being a communist?

He was stunned. Mostly, he just looked sad and accepting of it. No violent outburst or anything, or trying to convince me otherwise. Later, he did note his disapproval but he never said anything to persuade me away from it. If anything, my other relatives were more against it and considered me disrespectful of him because of the war he was in and tried their damndest to persuade me. He never said anything and just looked incredibly sad when they talked in support of him as a vet and in the war. Sometimes he'd even wear a veterans shirt or cap places, I think, to torture himself with people thanking him. He once commented to me how disgusting and pathetic one guy was who essentially groveled to him in thanks of his service.

Additionally, do you think he said nothing because of what he had already confessed to you? Or was it more of an “honor” thing for him to just not share information given in confidence?

Not sure. He never said anything to his wife or kids, only me. Really, the reasoning for why he only tells me is enigmatic and he has never explained it. Could be shame, could be he's afraid of getting caught in a lie, could be afraid that everyone knew him for so long and are upset that he never told them. Don't know.

So did he bring kids of the Japanese woman with him to live in the States?

No, I mentioned getting in contact with them but he flatly refused. It was an extramarital affair and he thinks he'd only cause more pain by talking to them. After he dies, I might contact the Japanese relatives, though honestly I'm leaning on contacting them sooner than that just so I can have better questions to ask him.

Leaflets have been historically used to spread disease (Ukraine is even accused of using them to spread TB as recently as a few years ago), so it could be that CO or whatever was telling the truth. Obviously, if your goal is polluting something, leaflets aren’t the optimal way to go, but if you already have an excess of plague leaflets or a method of safely assembling such a payload, perhaps the air force decided existing means/methods were “good enough” for this job as well.

TIL

While I learned about stuff like that around age 10ish, its a bit different to learn that the relative that cares for you personally murdered potentially thousands of people and nobody gave a shit.

I feel extremely conflicted emotions about him myself. The guy was genuinely helpful to me as a kid. When I told him he was a racist piece of shit, he listened and changed his words, like he genuinely cared what I said. He said some homophobic shit during one of our talks, I told him to stop, and he stopped. No questions asked, never did it again. I do genuinely feel that if he wasn't propagandized, felt like his country was 'right' and 'correct' after WW2 and its propaganda, if there was less systemic racism, he would have been a genuinely good guy.

But he wasn't, and turned out to be a monster. Its very disconcerting and horrifying to know this is how the world can work, especially learning that as a kid. But the only way to respond to this sort of thing is to side with the victims, of which he has many.

Yeah that tidbit was pretty wild. He said he remembered being one of the last people out through a ladder/seal despite knowing there were numerous people following him up. Said he woke up and realized what was happening after the explosion with his nose and mouth just barely out of the water. Has hearing issues to this day because of how the explosion reverberated. Didn't stop him from piloting.

Oh and fun fact, he didn't realize he qualified for special healthcare for combat injuries until like, two years ago because Veteran Affairs lied to him for decades. So he has been suffering a lot from that.

Agreed. He isn't leaving behind anyone vulnerable at this point, to say the least. Personally, I think he could have been a great person if he avoided the war. Could. That's part of what is so frustrating about him to me.

I've pretty much alluded to as much in the past as a kid. He still feels like he has a duty to family. I know that is hypocritical of him cause he killed a fuckton of people who won't be able to fulfill their duty to their families, but that is how it is. Also, he is hardly put together at this point, so American media would just spin it as him going insane and the DPRK using it as an opportunity to torture a dying man.

Are you a Korean communist? If so, based.

Doubt he'd do that though.

He's filled with a lot of that. Tbh, a lot of my family is. I honestly think it sort of radiated out from him a little.

Don't worry :)

Also I have said this stuff before on bigger places than this with no issue for 10ish years

Yeah I have it on a lot of drives, encrypted on cloud storage, and so on. Also gave some drives to some friends with a big 'DO NOT ERASE: VERY IMPORTANT FILES BELONGING TO X' written on the drive lol.

Yes, though he is becoming increasingly incoherent but has random bouts of having absolutely zero filter which is a bit useful for clarifying previous questions. He even provided me with some film he took at one point in the cockpit, which afaik is very rare and has only been seen by family. I had it digitized and plan to release it when he dies. It depicts some bombing runs and carrier operations. I also have video of his stories which I told him was to help him with his notes. I'll probably scrub identifying information out of it as a precaution at some point and attempt to give it to some socialist news sources. If it won't fuck my life over (re: living in not America) I'd just say who I am and who he is.

Doesn't surprise me.

I'm not really sure. I think some of it is he probably told some lies to them to deflect his PTSD, but since I was odd one out / young he hadn't done that to me yet. He's a sort of 'honorbound' guy. Refused suicide because he couldn't leave his wife behind in a misogynist society that hated widows at the time (and still kinda does). Couldn't leave his kids without support, which they wouldn't have if he died because society was/is so male-driven. Probably feels a greater duty to live up to the vision his kids and other family have of him and got to me before I thought of him as some sort of hero.

Its honestly puzzling to me. He's a very strange guy. Completely broken and has been for a very long time.

He spent a lot of time with me alone is the main thing I think. It was a pretty long drive to get to school and I figure his mind wandered a lot during it and he was the only person able to take me to it for like 7 years. I was also a very curious and critical kid and I think he liked that and enjoyed encouraging it. In a fucked up way, I do think he had a good interest in mind by telling me about this at a formative age. It certainly made me very discerning about what was in my history books in school. But it was probably way too early to tell me. Maybe when I was a teen. But I also get a hint that he wanted to discourage me from joining the military, and my parents would goad me with the idea a lot citing him as a good example. So maybe it was his nuclear solution, and despite being an incredibly shitty person, he does feel regret about it or at least didn't want me to be subjected to the PTSD he has. Which is something, I guess.

He's written what is essentially a giant screed of notes on the war of what he did and I read through them all. Not published or anything, but I have it all digitally transcribed after a lot of work. I haven't told anyone except people online and people not connected to my family, because his condition for telling me more stuff is that I don't tell the family. I think its more important to get all the details, personally. He said he gave some vague notions of bad stuff happening to his kids, but nothing in detail.

And as far as I know, he didn't really know about anything in relation to POWs. I can ask him next time I see him. But he did describe a sort of culture in the air force, a sort of culture of never-ending glee at their job. He said at the time he disliked it for how unprofessional it was.

Though I do recall him calling McCain a pussy, and mentioned that he 'was glad he outlived such a pussy'.

It was wild. A lot of people have always described me as 'old beyond my age'. Wonder why. Definitely wasn't because I legitimately believed my relative was a murderer and everyone worshipped him for it and told me to stop insulting him every moment I had.

He met with the Black Sheep Squadron, notably, and described them as even crazier and wild than him, including gloating about how many dead they wracked up.

But he mentioned only meeting them briefly on a mission and talked on a radio.

edit: Part of the gloating was the pilots doing extremely reckless things in order to kill more people and getting away with it. Sort of like frat bros trying to up each other, except with war crimes.