When I write about this controversy over the Muslim Cultural Center containing a prayer room to be built near the Ground Zero area, eventually someone asks the question about whether or not it would be OK to build a Japanese related building at Pearl Harbor.

This brings to mind my uncle, Samuel Goldblith.  I have a number of links about him on my Famous Relatives web page.  One of the links is to his biography on Wikipedia.

Here are a few key paragraphs:

While at the Philippines, Goldblith would be part of the US Army contingent involved in the Battle of the Philippines and captured by the Japanese following the Battle of Corregidor. Having been surrendered on Corregidor, Goldblith avoided the Bataan Death March and Camp O’Donnell, being sent instead to one of the Cabanatuan POW camps. In November 1942 he endured a trip aboard the “hell ship“, Nagato Maru, to Japan.

Oops, far from avoiding the death march, he survived it. See his book, Appetite for life: an autobiography. Chapter 4 is titled, “The Bataan Death March and Early Days of Captivity (April 9 – April 22, 1942)”

Upon his discharge from the US Army, Goldblith would return to MIT where he would earn his S.M. in 1947 and his Ph.D. in 1949, both in food technology. He would join the food technology faculty at MIT in 1949, rising to the rank of professor in 1959. Goldblith would serve as acting department chair following Bernard E. Proctor’s death in 1959 and remained in that position until Nevin Scrimshaw took over as department chair in 1961. Goldblith would remain as professor until 1974 when he became MIT’s director of the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP), a position he would hold until 1978. After that, Goldblith would be promoted to MIT’s vice president of resource development until 1986, then promoted again to Senior advisor to the President of MIT, where he would retire in 1992.

During his service at MIT, Goldblith led the development of food irradiation, of freeze-drying and microwave technology, all of which would prove important for the Space Race. This included Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and Project Apollo, but would later stretch to Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and even to the International Space Station.

The first graduate student that Goldblith worked with was Yiachi Aikawa from Japan. Goldblith’s work with Aikawa would both develop a lifelong friendship and allow Goldblith to heal from the emotional wounds he suffered as a POW from World War II. Aikawa would later create TechnoVenture Co., Ltd., the first venture capital firm in Japan. He was also the son of Yoshisuke Aikawa, the founder of Nissan Motors. Their relationship would lead to the opening of the MIT Japan office in 1976 as well. It would also earn Goldblith the Second Grade of the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1984 for his efforts in strengthening Japanese-American relationships, only the second non-Japanese to do so at that time.

If my uncle could do this, the least I can do is to act rationally in a situation that is much less personally threatening than the ones he faced.