A Hiroshima Train Ride Love Story..It happened in 1971
Marshall Adame
June 10, 2009
It was 1971 and springtime in Japan. The Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) were full and seemed to blanket the city and countryside like a pink and white shroud. April in Southern Japan is simply beautiful. The Japanese who live there greet the spring with celebration and reverence. Through my twenty-two years in the Marine Corps, seven were spent in Japan, from Iwakuni in the South to Atsugi in the Northern Tokyo area and the Japanese Island province of Okinawa. I had first come to Japan directly from Vietnam with Marine Wing Support Groupt-17 (MWSG-17) in 1971 as a very young U.S. Marine. I had lied about my age to join the Corps and arrived in Vietnam having just turned seventeen years old.
Anyway, back to the "It was 1971 and springtime in Japan" story. I boarded a train in Hiroshima on my way South to Iwakuni where I was stationed with MWSG-17 at the Marine Corps Air Station. I often spent my off time in Hiroshima, just about forty minutes from Iwakuni by train. The Hiroshima Peace Park is beautiful and was the epicenter of the atomic explosion over the city in WWII. I loved hanging out there when ever I had the chance. The train made it easy to get there.
A very large part of the Japanese population travel by train. There is almost no town in Japan where a train does not stop. Sometimes, especially near the big cities, the trains can become so crowded that even if a person were to faint, they would not fall down.
The trains in Japan are very close quartered and although the seats are open and no real barriers separate the passengers, the Japanese seemed to be able to separate themselves mentally somehow. Each person appears to be somewhere else in their mind, completely removing them selves from the crowded condition. They always seemed so peaceful and placid while riding the train regardless of the level of human density in the room. In our American culture I feel we would be hard pressed to avoid violence in such crowded and sometimes unbearably hot circumstances on a regular basis.
On that early Hiroshima evening however the train was not crowded and I occupied a bench seat alone. Across the car from where I was seated was another bench facing me just like the one I was seated in, and there sitting on that bench seat was a young Japanese girl. She was sitting there holding a small box in her lap. It looked like, and as I noted later, it was, a lunchbox. She appeared to be about my age at the time. She was very pretty and petite with an ankle length dress and otherwise very modest clothing. Her eyes never met mine, as was the apparent custom with everyone riding trains in Japan. I rarely if ever noticed people looking directly at each other. She stared into the emptiness of the car as if, in her mind, she was not there, but in another place much more suited to her. An almost smile on her face and an occasional tap of her foot was all the movement she made.
We sat across from each other on the train as it stopped several times at the towns between Hiroshima and Iwakuni where I would exit some time later.
When the train began to slow as it approached the next stop on its daily route from Hiroshima, I noted the girl turning to look out of the window behind her. It was clear that she was expecting to see someone she knew. I noticed an unmistakable smile come to her face as the door electrically opened to let passengers on and off. He walked into the train talking to another man entering the car with him. When he spotted her he clearly smiled and said bye to the friend he had entered the car with. He did not speak and neither did she. The look on his face was almost one of soft relief and he walked over and sat next to her. He must have just gotten off work I thought. The man sat down next to the girl and smiled, still not speaking a word. He touched her hand and shoulder and then simply sat facing me across the car from them. She never stopped looking at him. She was fixated on his face in such a way as to be talking to him without saying a word. It was clear that she admired this young man a great deal.
The girlīs attention went to the box still in her lap and she opened it. From it she took what I recognized to be a Sushi wrap and reached over to his hand and simply touched him. He looked at her and then to the sushi. She was smiling and he began to smile as well as he reached to take the sushi from her hand. Their smiles grew and I realized that something unspoken was passing between them. Perhaps an unspoken joke, I thought, which came from a shared experience they once had, or maybe a reminder of a very soft and private moment they had once shared.
I, of course, would never know. Somehow it made me think of my wife Becky who was back in the good ole U.S.A.. waiting for her Marine to come home. We were married very young; she was sixteen and I was seventeen when we married, just before I was sent to Vietnam. Becky still looks at me the way this woman in Japan was looking at this young man next to her.
The man began to eat the sushi and, as he was eating the sushi she had brought for him, the girl would very gently touch his mouth with a napkin. At this point neither of these two people had spoken a single audible word that I noted, or heard since the time he had entered the train. I was sure one of them would verbally say something to the other sooner, or later while they were still on this train. It never happened, and yet the obvious communication between them could not have been more significant, understood and meaningful than had they been in deep discussion the entire time they were on the train. At the train Station stop, just before the Iwakuni station, they got off the train and I watched them as they were walking toward the turnstiles. He reached out and held her hand as they were walking away from the train. Her eyes never left him. They never spoke a word. I guess they didnīt have to. This was, I thought to myself, a real life love story that I had just witnessed.
I wrote this story in my private journal that very night after arriving back to my barracks in Iwakuni. I wanted to never forget the moving love story I had witnessed on the train from Hiroshima in 1971. Even to this day I wonder what ever became of the two people, so obviously in love, that I had seen on the train from Hiroshima to Iwakuni, Japan that evening so far away and so long ago .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marshall Adame served in the U.S. Marine Corps for 22 years as an Aviation Logistician. He is a Vietnam veteran. He became an Aviation Management/Logistics Consultant in 1992.
Marshall worked in the Kuwait recovery of 1992 and was an Aviation Logistics support representative in several areas throughout the United States until 1998.
He was the Senior Aviation Logistics Manager for Kaman Aerospace in their Egypt US Government Aviation programs and lived in Egypt from 1998 until late 2002.
Marshall went to Iraq in 2003 where he was the U.S. Coalition Airport Director for Basrah International Airport.
Later he was VP for Aviation development with a Commercial Services Corporation in Iraq where he lived and worked in the "Red Zone" of Baghdad.
In 2005 Marshall received a U.S. State Department Diplomatic appointment in Iraq and was a U.S. Advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Interior.
Later, as a State Department Official in Iraq, Marshall was promoted to Department of State Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) where he was on the staff of the National Coordination Team (NCT) in Baghdad, Iraq overseeing PRT development throughout the country.
He returned to the United States in August 2006 and became the DRS-TSI, Inc. Program Manager of the U.S. Army CECOM RESET program, where he is now the Program Manager overseeing Afghanistan and Iraq replenishment requirements.
He is a member of the consulting groups, Gerson Lehrman Group and The Society of Industry Leaders. He is an artist member of BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc) where his music is cataloged.
Marshall attended the University of Maryland, NC State University and Carolina Community College. He is also a graduate of the Marine Corps Staff NCO Academy, the Navy Senior Aviation Logistics School, and the Marine Corps / State Department Embassy School.
Marshall and Becky Adame have four children, Paul 37, Veronica 35, Billy 30 and Benjamin 26, and twelve grandchildren.
Billy and Benjamin serve in the US Army and are both Iraq veterans. Billy was wounded in Battle about 20 miles North of Baghdad on July 2, 2006. Benjamin returned from Iraq in October 2008 after his second 15 month tour.
Anyway, back to the "It was 1971 and springtime in Japan" story. I boarded a train in Hiroshima on my way South to Iwakuni where I was stationed with MWSG-17 at the Marine Corps Air Station. I often spent my off time in Hiroshima, just about forty minutes from Iwakuni by train. The Hiroshima Peace Park is beautiful and was the epicenter of the atomic explosion over the city in WWII. I loved hanging out there when ever I had the chance. The train made it easy to get there.
A very large part of the Japanese population travel by train. There is almost no town in Japan where a train does not stop. Sometimes, especially near the big cities, the trains can become so crowded that even if a person were to faint, they would not fall down.
The trains in Japan are very close quartered and although the seats are open and no real barriers separate the passengers, the Japanese seemed to be able to separate themselves mentally somehow. Each person appears to be somewhere else in their mind, completely removing them selves from the crowded condition. They always seemed so peaceful and placid while riding the train regardless of the level of human density in the room. In our American culture I feel we would be hard pressed to avoid violence in such crowded and sometimes unbearably hot circumstances on a regular basis.
On that early Hiroshima evening however the train was not crowded and I occupied a bench seat alone. Across the car from where I was seated was another bench facing me just like the one I was seated in, and there sitting on that bench seat was a young Japanese girl. She was sitting there holding a small box in her lap. It looked like, and as I noted later, it was, a lunchbox. She appeared to be about my age at the time. She was very pretty and petite with an ankle length dress and otherwise very modest clothing. Her eyes never met mine, as was the apparent custom with everyone riding trains in Japan. I rarely if ever noticed people looking directly at each other. She stared into the emptiness of the car as if, in her mind, she was not there, but in another place much more suited to her. An almost smile on her face and an occasional tap of her foot was all the movement she made.
We sat across from each other on the train as it stopped several times at the towns between Hiroshima and Iwakuni where I would exit some time later.
When the train began to slow as it approached the next stop on its daily route from Hiroshima, I noted the girl turning to look out of the window behind her. It was clear that she was expecting to see someone she knew. I noticed an unmistakable smile come to her face as the door electrically opened to let passengers on and off. He walked into the train talking to another man entering the car with him. When he spotted her he clearly smiled and said bye to the friend he had entered the car with. He did not speak and neither did she. The look on his face was almost one of soft relief and he walked over and sat next to her. He must have just gotten off work I thought. The man sat down next to the girl and smiled, still not speaking a word. He touched her hand and shoulder and then simply sat facing me across the car from them. She never stopped looking at him. She was fixated on his face in such a way as to be talking to him without saying a word. It was clear that she admired this young man a great deal.
The girlīs attention went to the box still in her lap and she opened it. From it she took what I recognized to be a Sushi wrap and reached over to his hand and simply touched him. He looked at her and then to the sushi. She was smiling and he began to smile as well as he reached to take the sushi from her hand. Their smiles grew and I realized that something unspoken was passing between them. Perhaps an unspoken joke, I thought, which came from a shared experience they once had, or maybe a reminder of a very soft and private moment they had once shared.
I, of course, would never know. Somehow it made me think of my wife Becky who was back in the good ole U.S.A.. waiting for her Marine to come home. We were married very young; she was sixteen and I was seventeen when we married, just before I was sent to Vietnam. Becky still looks at me the way this woman in Japan was looking at this young man next to her.
The man began to eat the sushi and, as he was eating the sushi she had brought for him, the girl would very gently touch his mouth with a napkin. At this point neither of these two people had spoken a single audible word that I noted, or heard since the time he had entered the train. I was sure one of them would verbally say something to the other sooner, or later while they were still on this train. It never happened, and yet the obvious communication between them could not have been more significant, understood and meaningful than had they been in deep discussion the entire time they were on the train. At the train Station stop, just before the Iwakuni station, they got off the train and I watched them as they were walking toward the turnstiles. He reached out and held her hand as they were walking away from the train. Her eyes never left him. They never spoke a word. I guess they didnīt have to. This was, I thought to myself, a real life love story that I had just witnessed.
I wrote this story in my private journal that very night after arriving back to my barracks in Iwakuni. I wanted to never forget the moving love story I had witnessed on the train from Hiroshima in 1971. Even to this day I wonder what ever became of the two people, so obviously in love, that I had seen on the train from Hiroshima to Iwakuni, Japan that evening so far away and so long ago .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marshall Adame served in the U.S. Marine Corps for 22 years as an Aviation Logistician. He is a Vietnam veteran. He became an Aviation Management/Logistics Consultant in 1992.
Marshall worked in the Kuwait recovery of 1992 and was an Aviation Logistics support representative in several areas throughout the United States until 1998.
He was the Senior Aviation Logistics Manager for Kaman Aerospace in their Egypt US Government Aviation programs and lived in Egypt from 1998 until late 2002.
Marshall went to Iraq in 2003 where he was the U.S. Coalition Airport Director for Basrah International Airport.
Later he was VP for Aviation development with a Commercial Services Corporation in Iraq where he lived and worked in the "Red Zone" of Baghdad.
In 2005 Marshall received a U.S. State Department Diplomatic appointment in Iraq and was a U.S. Advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Interior.
Later, as a State Department Official in Iraq, Marshall was promoted to Department of State Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) where he was on the staff of the National Coordination Team (NCT) in Baghdad, Iraq overseeing PRT development throughout the country.
He returned to the United States in August 2006 and became the DRS-TSI, Inc. Program Manager of the U.S. Army CECOM RESET program, where he is now the Program Manager overseeing Afghanistan and Iraq replenishment requirements.
He is a member of the consulting groups, Gerson Lehrman Group and The Society of Industry Leaders. He is an artist member of BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc) where his music is cataloged.
Marshall attended the University of Maryland, NC State University and Carolina Community College. He is also a graduate of the Marine Corps Staff NCO Academy, the Navy Senior Aviation Logistics School, and the Marine Corps / State Department Embassy School.
Marshall and Becky Adame have four children, Paul 37, Veronica 35, Billy 30 and Benjamin 26, and twelve grandchildren.
Billy and Benjamin serve in the US Army and are both Iraq veterans. Billy was wounded in Battle about 20 miles North of Baghdad on July 2, 2006. Benjamin returned from Iraq in October 2008 after his second 15 month tour.
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