A boy wrote his peace message after he graduated from our high school:

The cobalt blue of the sea, the green of the semitropical forests—they’re impressions of Okinawa many people get from TV or books. People surely think, “I want to visit there,” and I, of course, thought so. Fortunately one winter, my family and I had an opportunity to go to Okinawa Hontou, the main island of Okinawa Prefecture.

 I wanted to see unique wild creatures, so we drove to the north of the island, where they lived. Watching the forest from the highway, I was very surprised. There were no tropical trees in the mountains; instead they had grassland of vast extent. Okinawa has a lot of rain and it is warm throughout the year, so the plants, especially the trees, grow very fast. It seemed unnatural to me that only grasses continue to live and trees don’t. We got out of the car, and the next moment, I realized the reason.

American armies had used the mountains as their base. They’d continued firing shots into the mountains until the seeds of trees must’ve blown off and the animals ran away. Where is the peace of life in Okinawa?