Mike Honda: “A couple of words I would like to close with. One is ``spirit'' and the other is ``reconciliation.'' The spirit that I…”

“A couple of words I would like to close with. One is ``spirit'' and the other is ``reconciliation.'' The spirit that I have learned in this process is the spirit of the victims, the ex-POWs, the spirit that was exhibited by Dr. Lester Tenney, by Mr. Frank Bigelow from Florida, who at 6-4, as a young man hunched over in the tunnels of the coal mines in Japan, had his leg broken by a boulder that fell down and shattered his leg; no medical facilities, no medical attention. In a couple of days they realized that his leg was gangrenous, and they needed to do something in order to save his life. The choice was, do we amputate his leg and take the chance that he may die because of that, or do we allow the gangrene to continue and know that he will die? And he said, take it, and they took it with a pocket knife and a hacksaw and no anesthesia. Yet today, both Dr. Tenney and Frank Bigelow have the spirit and the grace to say that they forgive what had happened to them, and what they seek today is just justice in their own court system.”