V-J Day

65 years ago today WWII ended. The Japanese had planned to defend their homeland to the last man,woman,and child. Evidence of how violent the struggle would be was seen at the battles of Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, the last two battles in the Pacific.
Fanatical and totally dedicated to the Samurai code, it was a disgrace to surrender, hence the Marines had to kill the vast majority of the defenders, few were taken prisoner.
Experts believe that over one million American and Japanese soldiers and countless Japanese civilians would be killed in the invasion. Olympic would have been the initial invasion, Coronet would be the second.
My Dad was in the Philippine's in the Fall of 1945, he surely would have been part of these two D-Days since the islands were to be a stepping off point towards Japan.
The war was conservatively estimated to have lasted until 1948.

There are 118,218 WWII veteran's alive in Texas today. U.S. Department of Veteran's affairs says that they are dying at a rate of 800 a day. It is estimated that in 2020, there will be only 17,000 WWII veterans alive in Texas.