By Bill Walsh

Other Voices

I met Bruce Imai head-on in 1955, shortly after Christmas, when our two brand-new bicycles collided on a Burlingame sidewalk. What ensued was an immediate pushing match, followed by a lifelong friendship. We played football together, hung out together and occasionally drank from the same beer can.

He was one of the guys. Then, he, and we, realized he was somewhat different when the father of a would-be girlfriend forbade him from taking her out. Bruce was Japanese-American, a Jap in Carolyn’s father’s vernacular. We lost some innocence that year.

Much later I found out that Bruce’s family had been interned during the war years. I don’t know, and I have never asked, but I would imagine Bruce might have been born in the camp.

It was hard for me to imagine what possessed our parents’ generation to be so paranoid as to compromise the civil rights of American citizens purely on the grounds of race or ethnic origin. Ultimately, government apologies followed and reparations were discussed, but my generation never understood, and frankly never forgave, our fathers for that miscarriage of justice.

Now I’m 50-something. I’ve lived through several wars or conflicts, both hot and cold. All of them have been on someone else’s turf. It occurs to me that maybe it’s easy to be self-righteous when there is no domestic threat. Sept. 11 has been a wake-up call, a back-to-the-future episode. This time the rules of engagement were different and the field of play was the home field - in any other endeavor that would have been an advantage. Six hundred and some people (not citizens) are being indefinitely detained, and somehow that’s OK, even comforting.

My oldest daughter, a flight attendant, was recently unsettled when three Arabs boarded her aircraft. Ultimately, a case of flight crew jitters brought the plane back to the gate for further inspection.

Profiling? I guess, but do you really care if you’re a passenger on that flight?

My guess is that the next generation is going to think badly of us for some of the things we are doing in the aftermath of Sept. 11. I don’t feel totally right about things, and I care, but not that much.

What I’ve developed is not an acceptance of my father’s generation’s actions during World War II, but a healthy understanding of it.

Walsh is a Los Altos resident.