Word From World War Sparks A War Of Words
VA says headline slur offended, but removal of paper offends vets


GONE: A newspaper with the headline "Japs Surrender" once hung near this one with the headline "Germany Quits."

Tom Mattice said he was trying to promote a "healing environment" when he removed the old, yellowing wall decoration from a hallway at the VA hospital.

But in doing so, the hospital director has opened an old wound -- and spurred debate about political correctness, free speech and how to be true to history without being offensive.

At issue is a framed newspaper front page from an August 1945 Indianapolis Times. The headline: "Japs Surrender."

Mattice, director of the Roudebush Veterans Affairs Medical Center, said there'd been a complaint: A new employee was offended by the term "Japs," a commonly used slur during World War II.

So, Mattice took down the framed front page, which is now tucked away in the center's executive offices.

That decision, however, has riled a group of retired Marines who call it whitewashing history and akin to offering an apology that isn't due. They are campaigning to have the artifact put back on the wall, where it had hung alongside other World War II memorabilia for more than a decade.

Said Ronald "Bud" Albright, who as commandant of the local Marine Corps League chapter has started a letter-writing campaign among veterans nationwide: "We feel it's a slap in the face of the U.S. military. That newspaper is history, part of United States history."

Dust-ups over such public displays are common and invariably emotion-charged. Last month, Indianapolis International Airport altered a photo exhibit after fielding a complaint over a provocative view of Israel and American Jews expressed in one of the captions.

In 2002, some students at Indiana University fought for the removal of a Thomas Hart Benton mural depicting Indiana history in Woodburn Hall because it showed Ku Klux Klansmen. The mural stayed; the KKK is a part of Indiana history.

The term "Jap" is a part of American history, emblematic of the racial prejudice that was promoted during World War II.

"A precondition to fight a war is to dehumanize the enemy," said Guy Burgess, a co-director of the Conflict Research Consortium at the University of Colorado. "If you think of them as humans, you can't do the things war compels you to do."

In the case of Japan and Germany, Burgess said, it was an easy sell. "There was lots of real evil in the Axis countries," he said.

But that was more than 60 years ago. The Japanese, as well as the Germans and the Italians, have been allied with us ever since.

"The war's over, but if you're going to tell it like it is, then you tell it like it was, and that's the way it was, just like that newspaper said it," said John Gromosiak, a Korean War veteran and artist. Gromosiak's paintings of American warships line the VA's hallway near where "Japs Surrender" used to hang and where another newspaper, proclaiming "GERMANY QUITS," hangs still. "You cannot hide history, or you shouldn't."

Museums frequently must tread lightly, which they do by pairing controversial displays with detailed explanations. As part of the National World War II Museum's exhibit of propaganda posters, captions prepare the viewer for what they're seeing and put the grotesque images into context.

"You would never want to put up an object without interpreting it," said Kacey Hill, a spokeswoman for the New Orleans museum.

"But we are not a museum," said Mattice, the VA director. "A museum is where people go to understand the history. We are a medical center."

Mattice said he has contacted the VA's national ethics office for a ruling on how to proceed. "Should we as a nationwide organization have a stance on these kinds of materials?" he wondered. "Perhaps we should."

In the meantime, he searches for a compromise. Mattice has instructed one of his staffers to locate a different newspaper front page, one that carries the same news, of the war's end, but expressed more delicately.

"Something like 'Victory in the Pacific,' " he said. "Or, 'Japanese Surrender.' "

Albright is not calmed. "Oh, baloney!" he said. "To me, that's coming across with some smoke, some political smoke."


CAMPAIGNING FOR RETURN: Ronald "Bud" Albright, Whiteland, commandant of the local Marine Corps League chapter, said of the newspaper's removal: "We feel it's a slap in the face of the U.S. military."
This is bullshit! The word “Japs” is no more offensive than “Brits”, “Aussies”, or “Poles”.