Journal+Entry+4+HWK

**12 September 1945** //The last Japanese forces left the island of Singapore on September 12, 1945. That day is today. Words cannot describe the emotions I am undergoing as I am writing this. The years of suppression and treatment I had received, no, the misery of war, was finally coming to an end. I looked back at my first entry, and relived the life of a fresh 21-year old lad who had just come out of his homeland. I looked to see the quick temper and biased point of view of this younger Thomas Malthus. Who was he? I am not so sure. Who am I right now? I am not so sure either. It is certain, however, that I have changed since the start of the war. The war has changed me, quite greatly, more so than I had previously expected. When I first enlisted for the British Air Force, I had high hopes. Hopes that were too full of glory and falsehood fed by the loudspeakers. But when I was rejected from my dream career and re-enlisted into the Army, I began to see the truer colors of life in the military, and later on the life of a soldier at war. From Singapore’s hot, humid weather to the blood of the wounded and dead, I’ve come to understand that the world revolves around not just the choices of one, but of many. That is not to say that the seething hatred I have for the Japanese are any less intense. It is only that I have come to see the bigger and higher perspective on such matters. The Japanese did what they did for a reason, and that reason was sure as hell affected by as much by outsiders like us–the English, the Americans, the Chinese.//

//Everyone came out to the streets to celebrate the end of the Japanese rule. I came out in non-festive spirits. I wondered to myself. Were what the Japanese had done–the crimes and injustices–not committed in the past by our forefathers? What of Singapore? Isn’t this another mask of imperialism, which is very similar to the Japanese occupation of China? The world, I have come to realize, is not divided by distinct lines. Instead, we are the ones who make them, and when these lines turn out unaligned, conflicts arise. What we do when such disagreements arise, however, is the key to a brighter, or darker, future.//