Teddy Roosevelt, courtesy of: The Saturday Evening Post

For centuries Asian products were desired, but one of the most profitable trade routes operated from India to China, introducing opium into that country.  This market accounted for 20% of the British Empire’s revenue and was the basis of the Roosevelt family wealth.

Teddy Roosevelt, a frail and sickly aristocrat, was taught thru his youth and at Harvard of Aryan supremacy in government and intellect.  Columbia University professor John Burgess impressed him with white American world domination.  With this ideology, he followed the European nations in absorbing colonies.  He pushed for control of the Philippines where the American behavior was deplorable, but overlooked.  The U.S. Minister to Japan, DeLong, encouraged “General” Charles LeGendre to go to Japan and instruct them on invasion tactics and instigate his “Monroe Doctrine” for Asia. (Three decades later it would be known as the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere of WWII).  When Japan invaded Manchuria, Roosevelt said, “I was thoroughly pleased with the Japanese victory for Japan is playing our game.”  Although U.S. advisors assured Korea that America was their “Elder Brother,” in 1905 Roosevelt closed the embassy and said, “I should like to see Japan have Korea.”  The Nobel prize committee did not know of his secret meetings with Japan during the Russo-Japanese War and gave him the Peace prize.

Teddy Roosevelt had not only opened the door for Japan to conquer neighboring nations, he gave them the ideal instructor and plans to do it with.  For detailed information see: The Imperial Cruise, by James Bradley

Japan’s fear of being colonized and the government’s expansionist policies led to its own imperialism in Asia and the Pacific, as it sought to join the great powers, all of which were Western nations.  The Japanese government saw it necessary to become a colonial power in order to be modern and therefore Western.   In addition, resentment was fanned in Japan by the rejection of the Japanese Racial Equality Proposal in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, as well as by a series of racist laws, which enforced segregation and barred Asian people (including Japanese), from citizenship, land ownership, and immigration to the U.S.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Being that Japan found it necessary to import food, fuel and American planes parts, here was the edge that FDR needed to coax the U.S. public into war.  When Germany failed to declare war, he froze Japan’s assets on July 26, 1941.  The ABCD powers (American, British, Chinese & Dutch) followed suit and this became a choke chain around Japan’s neck which FDR jerked as he saw fit until Pearl Harbor exploded into a scene of destruction.  This action not only got the U.S. into the war, but FDR made certain that the major effort would be to assist his friend Winston Churchill – not the Pacific.

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Military Humor –

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Farewell Salutes – 

Richard O. Bassuener – Falls Church, VA; US Army, Vietnam, Captain, 172nd Military Intel Detachment, Bronze Star

Raymond C. Chapman – Buffalo, NY; USMC, Vietnam, baker

Orville J. Cox – Haskell, TX; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Pfc. # 18038067, 34/24 Pursuit Group, KIA (Bataan, Luzon)

Kenneth Gettman – Fort Morgan, CO; US Navy, USS Yorktown & Midway

William A. Hansche – Piscataway, NJ; US Air Force, Major (Ret. 23 y.) / Civilian, US Army

Thomas L. Harrington – Sioux City, IA; US Navy, USS Midway & Dyes

Robert E. Leahy – Fitchburg, MA; US Navy, USS Midway

Ronald E. Nichols – Stow, OH; US Navy, USS Midway, Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Ret.)

Kenneth Pennington (105) – Wheeling, WV; US Navy, WWII, ETO & PTO, USS Princeton, Engineering Chief Torpedo Planes, USS Midway /  Korea, Warrant Machinist One (Ret. 20 y.)

Charles R. Powers – Riverside, CA; US Army Air Corps, WWII, PTO, Pfc. # 19028288, 28th Material Sq/20 Air Base Group, POW, DWC (Cabanatuan Camp, Luzon)

Carl Swanson – Jefferson, WA; US Air Force

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qr Pacific Paratrooper code

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