":Jerry:" wrote in message
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"Clive George" wrote in message
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"Roger" wrote in message
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The message
from "ARWadsworth" contains these
words:

What term would you use for your Grandad when you have to take him
shopping
for electrical goods and he refuses everything from Germay and Japan
and
wants to see the English stuff.

Hero?

If he fought in the 2nd world war (or even just lived through it) then
he has a right to feel aggrieved about the way in which the counties
that thankfully lost the war have now won the peace.

Don't think so. It would be rather better to be happy that the countries
which demonstrated such bad behaviour have put all that behind them. The
people in those countries are no longer the same people he fought - there
have been 2 or 3 generations since.

Sorry but it doesn't work like that for those who experienced it directly,
my father would not (knowingly) have Japanese stuff in his house for many
years, he had lost far to many of his mates to the Burma–Thailand Railway
('The Railway of Death'), the only reason he survived that ordeal was that
he joined up under age in '39 and was prevented from travelling (overseas)
with his then regiment to Singapore and straight into POW's. He was though
able to 'accept' what the Germans did to him in North Africa and later his
regiment at Arnham. He did eventually come to terms with what certain
people did in the name of Japan and their Emperor but I don't think he
ever forgave either Japan or Germany though - for his experiences and
wounds of the war troubled and stayed with him to his death bed.

Just because there are people who think that way doesn't make it any better.
It is stupid to blame the children and grandchildren of those who caused you
harm, especially when those children and grandchildren have done a good job
of not repeating the sins of their ancestors - that way lies vendetta, which
is a notoriously foolish thing.

I do realise that it can be hard to accept this - but it doesn't make it any
less true.

However in the bit you snipped, I did say "but at this stage in his life I
wouldn't necessarily be trying to reeducate him".

clive