I think frequently on my greatest professional achievement, an event that I had no right to be a part of, but yet was the culmination of 80 years of post World War II history between the United States and Japan. An experience that links our national Day of Infamy with the second rebuilding of Japan. First in 1945, and again in 2011. A snapshot of the awesome soft power of America’s military might.
August 2025 will mark eighty years since Japan’s surrender in World War II. March 2026 is fifteen years since Operation TOMODACHI, the U.S.-led relief effort after the “triple disasters” of March 11, 2011, when a magnitude 9.1 earthquake generated an apocalyptic tsunami against northeast Japan. The earthquake was so powerful that it moved Japan’s main island of Honshu eight feet east, accelerated earth’s rotation by nearly two microseconds, and shifted the earth’s axis.
It also critically damaged the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Japan’s world class safety standards were no match for one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. The human and economic costs were likewise catastrophic. In response, the United States launched Operation TOMODACHI (“friend” in Japanese), a massive U.S. military-led relief effort.
On March 10, 2011 (U.S. time) I was home in Crystal City, Virginia when my grandmother texted me about an earthquake in Japan. I responded casually “Japan has earthquakes all the time.” She responded “this is apparently a big one.” I checked the news and immediately headed to the office. She was right; It was.
At the time, I was a strategic analyst for the Defense Department, hired in late 2008 partly on my undergraduate studies at J.F. Obirin University in Tokyo. I knew this catastrophe would generate relentless demand for information by U.S. policymakers. A demand that grew once TOMODACHI planning began. The bench was not deep, as the U.S. Government has never valued Japan expertise commensurate with its economic, political, and military importance. DOD asked me to travel to Tokyo to support our efforts. There were still a lot of unknowns, and it wasn’t an order but a request. I accepted.
During World War II, a U.S. bomber collided with a Japanese fighter which fell back to earth atop a mountain in Shizuoka. Local legend says a Buddhist priest found the wreckage and gave both crews dignified burials. After the war, Shizuokans rightly chose to commemorate this act of humanity. After March 11, it also became a celebration of Japanese and American bonds.
I accompanied the embassy representative as his guest, ascending the mountain in a suit and tie in the still hot Japanese summer. Afterward, prefectural leaders hosted us and a group of junior airmen from Yokota Airbase at a city convention center. I was seated with two elderly Japanese gentlemen who, in the course of the meal and normal conversation, told me they had “attacked Pearl Harbor.”
“You bombed Pearl Harbor?” I asked with obvious shock through the interpreter to make sure there was no confusion. Maybe my Japanese had atrophied or I had missed a nuance.
“Yes” the man said, “our target was the West Virginia. Later in the war, we joined the special attack (i.e., Kamikaze) corps but the war ended.” A waiter brought glasses of whiskey for the table and the gentlemen offered us some. In that moment, time stood still. An experience I have never had before or since. I silently debated “can I share a drink with men who bombed Pearl Harbor? Who killed Americans? I am from West Virginia. Can I refuse? Can I claim not to drink?” I remember snapping out of it, time returning to normal speed, and concluded the war was long over, we won, and I was here because our alliance, the most successful in history, was undertaking the most logistically complex relief effort in history.
Almost as if reading my mind, the man continued “I was taught to hate America as a child, now Tomodachi makes me think my young self was a fool.” As any respectable Japanese meal does, the event ended with karaoke. The two old men went onstage and performed The Beatles’ Yesterday and then an Imperial Japanese marching song.
Later, I was back in Tokyo at a local konbini near the U.S. embassy. Two teenagers working the night shift eyed me inquisitively as I decided on dinner that night. When I walked up to the counter, rather than asking the standard atatemasu-ka? they instead asked “are you American?” in English. I said yes, and the one young man said “thank you for tomodachi” with a deep bow. I will never forget it.
Anthony W. Holmes is a monthly contributor to the journal of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command’s Foreign Military Studies Office.
