Blaz remembered the occasional weekend frays and fights among boys from different villages . For the most part , he wrote , Guam was unfamiliar with travails since the CHamoru war centuries earlier . The island was the true epitome of paradise , where celebrations — birth , weddings and religious events — preoccupied the people .

“ Those halcyon times ended with the coming of the war and with them ended my boyhood . What was true of me was true of boys and girls across the island . In a moment we jumped from the dreamy reverie of childhood to the angular reality of adulthood . In that regard the members of my generation share a common birthday — Dec . 8 , 1941 . If our early memories were vague , what happened beginning that day assumed a sharpness and piercing pain that none of us could ever put from mind .”

Published in 2008 , “ Bisita Guam : Let Us Remember ” will satisfy your literary appetence . Inspired by the fighting spirit of the Marines , who liberated Guam , Blaz became one . He served in the U . S . Congress as Guam ’ s delegate for four terms .

“ Bisita Guam ” is a chronicle of coming-of-age and his family ’ s survival beyond all odds .

Blaz was 13 when one tranquil day was disrupted by the explosion of a sound that bore the word calamity . Along this recollec-

tion was the memory of chocolate bars and a Coke that he eventually abandoned when the commotion began . His appetite for the chocolate bars and Coke was immediately replaced by a hunger for comprehension of what was unfolding around him .

No one knew what was going on . The islanders ’ only source of news was the grapevine , and seeing the look of despair on their parents ’ faces were the children ’ s only way to understand the gravity of the situation .

Narrating in a lyrical and innocent voice , the 13-year-old Blaz asked “ What is a war ?” But he eventually understood the evil that came with the word when his family

retreated into the farm , where they would learn to improvise their basic needs to beat near-starvation , making use of whatever the jungle had to offer .

In a magical realism fashion , Blaz weaved tales with the bewitching charm of the Chamorro people ’ s belief in Taotaomona . The family built a makeshift house under the banyan tree , believed to host the ancestral spirits . Rather than punish the family for intruding into the sacred tree , the Taotaomona gave them refuge and sanctuary .

The post-war generation has been made aware of the oft-repeated stories about the ferocity of life on Guam under the Japanese occupation . While narrating the times of endless labor and mass killing , Let Us Remember also footnotes details that the succeeding generation will otherwise be not aware of . This includes the humiliation of families that had to meet a quota on the number of flies that each of them had to swat .

War and its atrocities are not mere statistics . “ They are always personal . And they stay with your forever ,” Blaz wrote . The eloquence with which he relives the old bitterness renders forgiveness .

The concluding portion of the book notes the ironies of history , which never stops but repeats itself with new twists . Blaz observes that the U . S , troops , once loved as the island ’ s liberators , have grown aloof and are now friends with Japan , the former foe . “ What was once ill becomes good and what was once embraced becomes anathema ,” he writes .

This is a great read as we commemorate Guam ’ s 80th Liberation Day .

Publisher / Editor-in-Chief Mar-Vic Cagurangan publisher @ pacificislandtimes . com

Contributing Writers Raquel Bagnol Ron Rocky Coloma Zaldy Dandan Jan Furukawa Theodore Lewis Jeffrey Marchesseault Joyce McClure Gabriel McCoard Diana Mendoza Jack Niedenthal James Pearce Jayvee Vallejera Jeffrey Voacolo Frank Whitman Aline Yamashita

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