Point of View December 5, 2024 – Hour 1 : Wounded Tiger

[00:00:04] Across America, live, this is Point of View. And now, Dr. Merrill Matthews.

[00:00:20] And welcome to Point of View. I'm Merrill Matthews, sitting in for Kirby Anderson today. And we've got a very interesting show for you.

[00:00:27] We're going to start out, we'll go to T. Martin Bennett. He is the author of the book, Wounded Tiger, the true story of the pilot who led the Pearl Harbor attack,

[00:00:37] whose life was changed by an American prisoner and by a girl he never met. It is a fascinating book. We had him on about a year ago, but I think you're going to enjoy that.

[00:00:49] Second hour, we're going to go to Ramez Salama. He is a tour guide in Egypt. And we're going to be talking about the role of Egypt in the Bible and just how that connection.

[00:01:02] There's so much there's so much that Egypt does in the Bible. We see so much of it. We sort of go over those points every now and then.

[00:01:10] But Egypt played a major role in the Bible. So we'll be talking about how the Bible interacts with Egypt.

[00:01:16] So I'm going to start out. We're going to turn to T. Martin Bennett. He wrote the book, I believe, Wounded Tiger came out in about 2014.

[00:01:24] But he's done an updated version of it that just came out. And I think he may be working on a film.

[00:01:29] He was a he calls it a true nonfiction novel. He was he's had various positions in there.

[00:01:37] He was an entrepreneur, won the Presidential Award for Entrepreneur of the Year from the Small Business Administration.

[00:01:43] He was vice president of a successful nonprofit and trained inmates in federal prison.

[00:01:49] And today we're talking about Wounded Tiger. Martin, thank you for joining us.

[00:01:54] Dr. Matthew, so great to talk to you. Can I call you, buddy?

[00:01:57] Absolutely. That's the nickname.

[00:02:00] You know, I just have to say, I am so impressed with your book in so many ways, because it's just, you know, we're two days away from the I think the 83rd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[00:02:14] So the fact that your book is out here, it's been out for a little while, but you've got this updated version of it.

[00:02:20] And tell me, why did you decide to take on this project?

[00:02:26] Yeah, that's a great question.

[00:02:28] So I've always loved true stories from an early age.

[00:02:31] When I was in fifth grade, I had a teacher that required us to read books and the guys didn't want to read like me.

[00:02:36] And girls were all happy about that.

[00:02:38] I went down to the library and kind of moped around.

[00:02:41] And then I stumbled across this bookshelf, the biographies, you know, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth.

[00:02:48] And I just devoured that shelf of books.

[00:02:50] I've read every book on the shelf.

[00:02:51] I love true stories.

[00:02:52] And, you know, the scripture says the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable.

[00:02:56] He gives us gifts that prepare us for our calling.

[00:02:58] And part of my calling has to do with telling true stories.

[00:03:00] So fast forward, I came across the story of Fuchida, who led the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[00:03:07] And I had never heard his story before.

[00:03:09] And although I am, I wouldn't call myself a war buff, I'm certainly way above average on the knowledge of World War II.

[00:03:15] I'd never heard anything really about this guy's life.

[00:03:18] And I also worked in the Christian ministry.

[00:03:20] And I'd never heard anything about his life either as him being a believer.

[00:03:23] So I was curious about his story, but I had very low expectations.

[00:03:27] But as I researched his story, I was really shocked and blown away that I thought, oh, wow, this would make a phenomenal feature film broadly appealing.

[00:03:38] It's very powerful.

[00:03:39] And so I really sensed that that was what I was supposed to do.

[00:03:43] So that's how I came across the story.

[00:03:46] I had already completed a feature-length screenplay on the life of John Newton, who wrote the song Amazing Grace.

[00:03:52] His life story is also extraordinary.

[00:03:54] Indeed it is.

[00:03:55] He was a slave trader.

[00:03:58] He could have or should have died on over 25 occasions that I've listed.

[00:04:02] His life was just mind-boggling.

[00:04:04] He said in his own words he knows of no story more extraordinary than his own.

[00:04:07] It is.

[00:04:08] But Buchita's story is relevant to the world today.

[00:04:11] And I know you're in this think tank, what is it, IPI.

[00:04:16] And they're looking for answers.

[00:04:18] And I think this is an exciting time to be a part of that with what's going on in the USA.

[00:04:22] But mankind has been at war with each other since Cain and Abel.

[00:04:27] There's been fighting and wars and death and destruction and cycles of revenge that don't seem to end.

[00:04:33] And in Wounded Tiger, the story of Buchita, the guy who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, we see how his life was transformed to the point that he brought his kids to America and they became U.S. citizens.

[00:04:45] How that happens is amazing and it's encouraging and inspiring.

[00:04:49] Now, you call this a true nonfiction novel.

[00:04:52] So those are sort of at odds with these.

[00:04:54] Tell us what is a true nonfiction novel.

[00:04:59] Well, the original vision and my continuing vision is the film.

[00:05:02] So that is what I see.

[00:05:04] I'm a very visual thinker and I see it on the screen and I'm very committed.

[00:05:08] I'm in talks with potential investors who can fully fund the film right now.

[00:05:12] So I'm hopeful.

[00:05:13] I'm also working with one of the producers of Hacksaw Ridge, a film that was nominated for Best Picture of the Year.

[00:05:19] And it tells a true story about a Seventh-day Adventist who was against killing.

[00:05:27] And so he was conscientious objector, but he won the Congressional Medal of Honor because he saved the lives of 70 people unarmed in Okinawa.

[00:05:36] So that's a phenomenal story.

[00:05:37] So getting back to what a nonfiction novel is, when you write a screenplay, it's all live action.

[00:05:43] Everything's happening in front of you.

[00:05:45] So a screenplay is written in the present tense.

[00:05:47] John goes to the door.

[00:05:48] Susan shouts, blah, blah, blah.

[00:05:50] So when you convert that to a book, I had to go through, well, what's the best way to tell a story?

[00:05:55] If you do it in a nonfiction format, it's kind of, you're kind of disconnected.

[00:06:00] They said this.

[00:06:01] He said that.

[00:06:02] These things happened.

[00:06:03] And you're kind of sitting in a chair observing.

[00:06:05] It's not quite the same way.

[00:06:06] In a novel, everything is live action.

[00:06:08] You know, she sprained and the flames burst out the door and he yelled, you know, run away.

[00:06:12] Well, that is very engaging.

[00:06:14] So as I researched formats for writing the story out, what seemed to fit best was what's called the nonfiction novel.

[00:06:22] This is what Truman Capote did for In Cold Blood.

[00:06:25] It was a true story, but it was written in the format of fiction.

[00:06:28] There's another well-known, popular book called Killer Angels by Michael Scherra.

[00:06:34] And this is the story of Gettysburg, but it's written as a nonfiction novel.

[00:06:38] Now, people can use a lot of artistic license in these kinds of things, but what I say in my introduction to Wounded Tiger is that I have, I explained all the research I went through.

[00:06:49] And I spent years on this, obviously.

[00:06:52] I went to Stanford and I went to the University of Pittsburgh, Japan, talked to attorneys, family members.

[00:07:00] I mean, it was a harrowing process.

[00:07:02] I had to get audio books translated from Japanese into English, et cetera, to track down this story.

[00:07:08] But what I say in the introduction and to conclude this part of the interview is every scene in the story is true.

[00:07:16] So this is not artistic license in the sense of making stuff up, but it is artistic license in the sense of I have to recreate conversations for which we don't have a verbatim transcript.

[00:07:29] We know they took place.

[00:07:30] We know the essence of it.

[00:07:31] We know who the people were.

[00:07:33] But I had to recreate those conversations.

[00:07:35] But what I did, buddy, is I submitted both the script and the book to experts, or both war experts, Japanese experts, and others, to make sure that this thing is as dead-on accurate as possible.

[00:07:47] Because I don't want people to feel kind of ripped off if they read the book or watch the film and say, oh, that was so great.

[00:07:52] Oh, I found out these things really didn't happen.

[00:07:55] That didn't happen.

[00:07:56] You know the feeling.

[00:07:56] And you just feel a little bit cheated.

[00:07:58] So I didn't want to do that.

[00:07:59] I wanted people to know this is the real deal.

[00:08:02] My author for this hour is Martin Bennett.

[00:08:05] He is the author of Wounded Tiger, the true story of the pilot who led the Pearl Harbor attack whose life was changed by an American prisoner and by the girl, a girl he never met.

[00:08:18] But this talks about, I've heard about this for some time, and now we have this book out here which sort of goes through and explains it.

[00:08:25] You can find access to this on our website at pointofview.net.

[00:08:29] When we come back, Martin, I'd like to talk a little bit about, since we're approaching Pearl Harbor Day, I'd like to talk a little bit about the attack.

[00:08:36] And then we want to get into the conversion of Mitsuo Fushigi.

[00:08:40] Stay with us.

[00:08:41] We'll be right back.

[00:08:57] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson.

[00:09:04] We'll be right back.

[00:09:04] Decades ago, Ronald Reagan observed no government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size.

[00:09:10] Government programs, once launched, never disappear.

[00:09:13] Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth.

[00:09:17] This is a challenge that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramachwamy face as they lead the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency.

[00:09:24] The two of them explain their plan to reform the government in their Wall Street Journal op-ed.

[00:09:28] They are assisting the Trump transition team in identifying and hiring a team of small government crusaders who will work with the Office of Management and Budget.

[00:09:37] Now, they aren't the first outsiders to attempt to trim the bureaucracy.

[00:09:41] J. Peter Grace led the Grace Commission that filed its report with Ronald Reagan in 1984.

[00:09:46] President Obama formed the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, often called Simpson-Bowles, in honor of the two co-chairs.

[00:09:54] Neither commission had much of an impact on the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy.

[00:09:59] Both Musk and Ramachwamy believe they have a better chance of success due to two Supreme Court rulings concerning federal regulations.

[00:10:07] They will present a list of regulations to President Trump, who will pause the enforcement of those regulations by executive action.

[00:10:14] They also challenge the conventional assumption that civil service protections stop a president from firing federal workers.

[00:10:21] But they don't plan to target specific employees, but merely reduce the size of the department.

[00:10:26] And they point to other Supreme Court cases to support their belief.

[00:10:30] Trimming the administrative state won't be easy, but I think they may have found an open door that will allow them to succeed in reforming the federal government.

[00:10:38] I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my Point of View.

[00:10:46] For a free booklet on a biblical view of anti-Semitism, go to viewpoints.info slash anti-Semitism.

[00:10:53] Viewpoints.info slash anti-Semitism.

[00:10:58] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] And welcome back to Point of View.

[00:11:06] I'm Merrill Matthews sitting in for Kirby Anderson today and joining me by phone, Martin Bennett.

[00:11:11] He is the author of Wounded Tiger.

[00:11:13] And, Martin, I got interested in this topic because our church had an audio book that my wife and I checked out.

[00:11:20] We listened to in our car.

[00:11:21] And it goes over some of the experience of Fushida, his conversion.

[00:11:27] But it just sort of focuses on things.

[00:11:29] It mentions his role in World War II, but it's really focused on his conversion.

[00:11:34] What's good about your book is you take it back and you give us a history here where you sort of take us through what's happening in World War II and Fushida.

[00:11:43] And you get the sense this was this surprise attack on Pearl Harbor had been in the works for a while.

[00:11:52] Yes.

[00:11:53] And, you know, when I think of this story, it reminds me of, for those who know, Paul Harvey and the rest of the story.

[00:12:02] So going to high school and grade school, you know, we all see the black and white footage of Pearl Harbor.

[00:12:07] They attacked us.

[00:12:08] They, you know, we came back and we beat them up.

[00:12:11] So we're the good guys.

[00:12:12] They're the bad guys.

[00:12:13] We won.

[00:12:13] They lost the end.

[00:12:15] And, you know, we still like Japan.

[00:12:16] We buy their cars and cameras and electronics and stuff.

[00:12:19] But when I asked teachers, what's going on?

[00:12:22] Why did the Japanese do this?

[00:12:23] What was motivating them?

[00:12:25] What were they trying to accomplish?

[00:12:26] What were they trying to take over the United States?

[00:12:29] Why were they so angry at Americans?

[00:12:30] I don't get any of this.

[00:12:32] And I'm a person of questions.

[00:12:33] I've gotten in trouble asking questions.

[00:12:35] You're probably one of those guys, too.

[00:12:36] You look, you know, a PhD in humanities.

[00:12:38] That's just nothing but questions.

[00:12:40] Well, people get tired of it.

[00:12:41] And they said, Martin, just, you know, stop asking questions.

[00:12:43] And I thought, well, you don't learn if you don't ask questions.

[00:12:45] So that was one of the things that drove me in this story.

[00:12:49] So as we approach December 7th, once again, I'd like for people to think about, well, what is the other side of the story and how did it work out?

[00:12:57] This guy, Buchita, was handpicked by Admiral Yamamoto, quite famous.

[00:13:01] And he joyfully led the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[00:13:05] What led him to do that and why?

[00:13:06] And how did his mind, heart, spirit, everything change to the point of regretting his participation?

[00:13:12] And that's where these other two plot lines and characters come in.

[00:13:16] So Wounded Tiger, the book is really three stories that wind together toward the end.

[00:13:21] The second plot line is a guy named Jake DeShazer.

[00:13:24] He was an American who joined the U.S. Army Air Corps.

[00:13:27] And that was the precursor to the Air Force.

[00:13:30] And he kind of accidentally ended up volunteering for a very dangerous raid on Japan called the Doolittle Raid.

[00:13:38] Right.

[00:13:39] And during, after he dropped bombs on Japan, his plane ran out of fuel over occupied China, where he was captured as a prisoner of war for 40 months, tortured under, you know, with deprivation, darkness, sickness.

[00:13:54] People were shot.

[00:13:55] People died of exposure.

[00:13:56] And he said in his own words, he was crazy with hatred toward the Japanese.

[00:14:01] And it's understandable, completely understandable.

[00:14:03] However, he didn't want to live that way and he didn't want to die that way.

[00:14:07] So he remembered his mom.

[00:14:08] And this is the shout out to moms around the world.

[00:14:11] You don't know the impact you'll have on your children until they're in dire straits.

[00:14:16] And they remember how you treated them and what you said and what you did.

[00:14:19] And that was powerful to Jake.

[00:14:21] And he remembered that his mother did love God and she was a kind, wise woman.

[00:14:25] And he didn't know what to do.

[00:14:27] So in the prison, they passed around reading material, got a hold of a Bible and he read it voraciously, but very skeptically.

[00:14:35] Does God still talk to people?

[00:14:37] How can you know the future?

[00:14:38] How could this even be true?

[00:14:40] However, he felt compelled to at least give it a shot.

[00:14:44] So he thought, okay, I'm going to do exactly what God says.

[00:14:47] I'm just going to see what happens.

[00:14:49] And, you know, right away, I mean, within days, he saw things started to pop in his life and he thought, wow, okay, I'm in for the journey.

[00:14:57] And you just see the progression of his life.

[00:15:00] Ultimately, when he got out, he wrote a story.

[00:15:02] It was translated into Japanese.

[00:15:04] And Fuchida got a copy at a very famous statue in downtown Japan in Shibuya, which was this big train station and a dog named Hachiko.

[00:15:14] And that's where Fuchida got this track on Jake's story, which was in English.

[00:15:19] The title is I was a prisoner of Japan.

[00:15:24] And so Fuchida was very interested in the story because Fuchida respected him as a daring pilot,

[00:15:30] because this raid came right into downtown Yokohama, Nagoya, Tokyo, and the Japanese were shocked.

[00:15:38] And the purpose of it wasn't as a – it wasn't a tactical raid.

[00:15:43] It was to demoralize the Japanese and break the morale that, hey, we can bomb Tokyo anytime we feel like it.

[00:15:51] Once we've finished up in the European theater and we're armed and ready to go, we're going to come and we're going to attack and destroy Japan.

[00:15:58] So it really did.

[00:15:59] It was very, very successful in that regard.

[00:16:01] So that's the second plot line.

[00:16:03] And the third plot line is a family of teachers who came from the Chicago area.

[00:16:07] They were very – they're highly educated, love God.

[00:16:11] They raised their children in Japan and they would go to the worst areas of Yokohama to the darkest places of poverty

[00:16:19] and help people clean and wash their hair, feed them, and teach them about the love of God.

[00:16:25] They did this regularly.

[00:16:26] It wasn't just like they do it like once a year.

[00:16:28] That was their life.

[00:16:29] They loved the people of Japan.

[00:16:31] But when Japan started ramping up for war, they realized it was not a welcome place for Americans.

[00:16:36] So they took a job teaching at a university in the Philippines and they sent their children to the United States.

[00:16:42] So that is the layout of Wounded Tiger, these three plot lines.

[00:16:46] But ultimately, the daughter of the Covell family who lived – who was going to school in upstate New York,

[00:16:51] volunteers to go to an internment camp and ultimately her story comes to Fuchida that although her parents were mistreated by the Japanese

[00:16:59] and persecuted, she looked for ways to love her enemies.

[00:17:02] And Fuchida could not understand this because he was raised in a very militaristic environment.

[00:17:07] And of course, he was in the military itself.

[00:17:09] Well, in the military, you destroy your enemies.

[00:17:12] You don't love your enemies.

[00:17:13] You don't serve your enemies.

[00:17:14] So he was kind of confused, kind of angry, and kind of upset, but also challenged and convicted that loving your enemies is probably a better thing to do than killing your enemies.

[00:17:24] And that's part of his journey.

[00:17:25] You know, I was a little – I didn't understand why that third segment came in with Covell until towards the end when we find out that Fuchida has talked to somebody who was an American prisoner of war

[00:17:39] and had been treated very nice by this young lady who ended up being the daughter of the missionaries who was killed.

[00:17:46] And so this comes – gets back to him in that sort of convoluted way.

[00:17:50] But that sort of put the cap on as to why you have that in there.

[00:17:55] But, you know, it's interesting because you mentioned Fuchida.

[00:17:58] Of course, we're talking about what's about 1949 or so now.

[00:18:01] It's four or five years after the war is over when he gets this tracked.

[00:18:05] Is that right?

[00:18:05] Yeah, it was after the war.

[00:18:07] And he was not in the military any longer at that point.

[00:18:12] But he was very despondent, of course, because his goals were – he had selfish ambition and ambition for his nation.

[00:18:19] And he expected they would obtain a place of primacy like Great Britain and Germany and the United States.

[00:18:28] And they wanted to be a great nation, a powerful nation.

[00:18:32] So that was part of what they did in World War II in their aggression of what they perceived as colonization of northern China,

[00:18:39] the Manchukuo area, and Southeast Asia and the islands, you know, in the southwest Pacific.

[00:18:45] But it all crashed and burned literally and millions were dead.

[00:18:50] And all of that or certainly a lot of that fell at the feet of Fuchida.

[00:18:54] And so many Japanese leaders killed themselves to basically atone for their own shame and failure.

[00:18:59] And plus, they didn't want to surrender to the Americans who they hated.

[00:19:03] So that's where he was at when he started hearing about this story of Peggy Covell, who loved the Japanese people,

[00:19:09] and Jake Eschaser, who was treated horribly in prison and ultimately got educated and came back to Japan because he believed there was a better way to live.

[00:19:18] He wanted to open those doors.

[00:19:19] You know, as an aside, I think in the 80s, I was my wife and I were in Chicago when we visited church there.

[00:19:27] A friend was a pastor that we knew.

[00:19:28] And Timothy Peach, who's in the book, was there as a guest speaking.

[00:19:33] And so we got to listen to him.

[00:19:34] He started out by he started his presentation by giving the Gospel of John in Japanese.

[00:19:40] And he mentioned he had been a missionary in Japan before the war.

[00:19:44] He had to leave during the war.

[00:19:45] He came back after the war.

[00:19:46] And he was the one who hands that tract out to Fuchida.

[00:19:51] And so he has a role in there also.

[00:19:53] I don't recall him saying anything about that when we heard him.

[00:19:57] But it's interesting how these things sort of combine here.

[00:20:02] But Fuchida takes his track.

[00:20:03] He ends up and goes and buys a Bible.

[00:20:06] And he has trouble finding one because many of the Japanese bookstores don't sell Bibles.

[00:20:10] But he finally gets one and starts reading it.

[00:20:12] Right.

[00:20:13] And that is really one of the cool things about this story.

[00:20:16] Both Fuchida and Jake DeShazer, all they did was they started to read the Bible.

[00:20:21] So God says that he's a rewarder of those who earnestly seek him.

[00:20:26] Fuchida did not have a pastor.

[00:20:27] He did not have a friend.

[00:20:28] He didn't have anyone or anything.

[00:20:30] All he had was a New Testament that he bought.

[00:20:33] And he didn't even know that it wasn't the whole Bible.

[00:20:36] He didn't know anything about the Bible.

[00:20:37] Can you imagine reading the Gospel story not knowing anything about it and not knowing how it ends?

[00:20:43] And it was during when he was reading the end of the Gospel that it answered a question that he had about Peggy's family.

[00:20:52] And I remember when I was first studying this story, he had these questions about these families of which were impossible to answer.

[00:20:58] And I thought, why would you ask such a question?

[00:21:00] You can never get an answer for that.

[00:21:02] It's impossible.

[00:21:03] And then later when he was reading the Bible and he got this answer, I thought, you know what?

[00:21:08] That flat out is the answer.

[00:21:10] And I was just quite amazed by it.

[00:21:12] So on the back cover of the book, buddy, I have a book from a Japanese.

[00:21:16] Hold on just a second.

[00:21:16] Hold on there, Martin.

[00:21:17] We're going to have to take a break here and we'll come back and take that pick up there.

[00:21:20] My guest for this hour, Martin Bennett.

[00:21:22] He is the author of Wounded Tiger.

[00:21:24] Stay with us on Point of View.

[00:21:25] We'll be right back.

[00:21:31] Who can you trust?

[00:21:34] Years ago, many of us could probably have provided a fairly long list.

[00:21:39] But today, well, today it seems we almost can't trust anyone.

[00:21:44] Educators don't even know what a woman is anymore.

[00:21:48] Many so-called public servants have shown all they care about is themselves.

[00:21:52] The FBI has been accused of bias, law-breaking, betrayal, and journalism.

[00:21:58] It's largely corrupt with no Clark Kent standing up for truth, justice, and the American way.

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[00:22:48] Point of View will continue after this.

[00:22:58] You are listening to Point of View.

[00:23:03] The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:10] And now, here again, Dr. Merrill Matthews.

[00:23:14] And welcome back to Point of View.

[00:23:15] My guest for this hour, T. Martin Bennett.

[00:23:18] He is the author of Wounded Tiger, the true story of the pilot who led the Pearl Harbor attack,

[00:23:25] whose life was changed by an American prisoner and by a girl he never met.

[00:23:30] And if you'd like to find out more about that book, we have a link to it.

[00:23:33] You can go to pointofview.net, go to today's program.

[00:23:35] We have a link to the book on there.

[00:23:37] And I would encourage you to do that because it is a very, very good book.

[00:23:41] We also have a link there to the little two-CD set I mentioned from Pearl Harbor to Calvary.

[00:23:47] That's one I listened to from our, we checked out from our church.

[00:23:50] And that has just two CDs in there talking about Fushida and his conversion.

[00:23:55] And then it has interviews with both Jake DeShazer and his wife after he passed away.

[00:24:01] So that's something you could listen to.

[00:24:03] And I believe, Martin, is your book already on CD?

[00:24:08] It has been completed.

[00:24:10] The audio book has been completed.

[00:24:11] But it's not available because it has to go through an approval process on Audible.

[00:24:16] So that's where we're at right now.

[00:24:18] But we've spent months on this and we've sent out samples to people who have listened to,

[00:24:23] well, a few people who listen like 800 audio books and said, you know, what is your opinion?

[00:24:27] And they said it was absolutely fantastic.

[00:24:29] They really liked it a lot.

[00:24:30] So what we did, because this is three different stories in Wounded Tiger,

[00:24:35] we used three different voice actors, one for Fushida.

[00:24:39] And that was the most difficult one to find.

[00:24:40] In fact, it took a very long time to get this voice.

[00:24:43] But it turned out this guy is absolutely perfect.

[00:24:47] So we have a Japanese person who's Japanese American who speaks fluent Japanese and speaks with a Japanese accent.

[00:24:55] This is a man who sounds like the voice of Wichita.

[00:24:58] And he's really, really good.

[00:25:01] And then we have a guy who plays the role of Jake DeShazer or, you know, does that part of the book.

[00:25:06] And that is an American male.

[00:25:08] And then for the Covell story, the key characters are the father and the daughter.

[00:25:12] And so we use the daughter's voice or someone who sounds like that.

[00:25:16] And she also does a phenomenal job.

[00:25:18] And I'm not saying this because it's my book.

[00:25:20] I'm very critical.

[00:25:21] And we went through many, many voices before we came down to these people.

[00:25:24] And we thought, okay, these people are going to do it, I think.

[00:25:27] And once we tested it, we went back and kept refining it until we got it dialed in.

[00:25:32] The net result is that when we sent it to people who are really audio book, audio files, they said,

[00:25:37] oh, my goodness, this is exactly what we want.

[00:25:39] So we do have samples of that that we've sent to people.

[00:25:42] But the audio book itself will not be available until a week or two on Amazon Audible.

[00:25:48] Oh, good.

[00:25:49] Okay.

[00:25:49] That's great because so many people listen to those, including me these days.

[00:25:53] That's how I listen to an awful lot of books.

[00:25:55] But at any rate, you were talking about Fushida before we took the break.

[00:25:59] And what was happening in his life once he got this New Testament and started reading it?

[00:26:05] Yeah.

[00:26:08] So what happened with Fushida was he had, he was just despairing about his life.

[00:26:16] And he was, you know, depressed in modern terminology.

[00:26:19] And what this gave him was hope.

[00:26:21] And that is something that's extraordinarily valuable.

[00:26:24] And that's really what the story of Wounded Tiger is all about.

[00:26:27] It's the story of hope.

[00:26:28] The hope in Fushida's story where he had failed in everything he hoped for.

[00:26:32] It was destroyed.

[00:26:34] And suicide was not necessarily a bad option for him in Japanese culture.

[00:26:39] But he didn't know what to do.

[00:26:40] In fact, he started writing a book.

[00:26:43] But if you read, you know, in Wounded Tiger, you'll see that.

[00:26:46] And it was called No More Hiroshima's, No More Wars.

[00:26:48] But he couldn't figure out how to get there.

[00:26:50] That's why when he came across the story of Jake DeShazer,

[00:26:53] who went from hating his enemies to loving his enemies,

[00:26:56] and he came across Peggy Covell's story of, you know,

[00:27:00] reaching out to actually serve the Japanese people,

[00:27:03] even though her parents were treated horribly.

[00:27:05] He thought, okay, why would you do that?

[00:27:08] That was his first question.

[00:27:09] But his next question was an even better question.

[00:27:11] And that is, where does this love come from?

[00:27:14] And so in this world today, you know better than I do,

[00:27:17] because of what you do in your policy think tank,

[00:27:20] that this world is full of hatred and war and revenge and cycles of revenge

[00:27:24] that seem to never end.

[00:27:25] But they can end, and they do end.

[00:27:27] And you see that happen in the story of Buchita, Jake DeShazer,

[00:27:31] and Peggy Covell in Wounded Tiger.

[00:27:33] And the way it happens is you cannot give what you do not have.

[00:27:37] So you can't really love people with an unconditional love

[00:27:40] unless you know that love yourself, and that comes from God.

[00:27:43] And you cannot, you can't forgive your enemies the way God forgives us

[00:27:49] until you experience that.

[00:27:51] Once you experience it, then that's the river of life that flows out of you.

[00:27:55] And that's really the amazing thing in this story.

[00:27:58] I've had people who are not religious in any way at all read this book

[00:28:02] and tell me with tears in their eyes that this story impacted them very heavily

[00:28:07] when they saw how people loved others,

[00:28:09] they realized they needed to be a better person themselves.

[00:28:12] Just to give an example from the book,

[00:28:14] Fushita has a friend who came to his house and threatened him.

[00:28:19] Tell us that story.

[00:28:21] Well, I have to be careful because I want to set up things,

[00:28:24] but I don't want to give them away.

[00:28:26] So in the story there was a former member of the Imperial Japanese Navy,

[00:28:31] excuse me, military, the Army that is.

[00:28:34] And he heard about Fushita, and he was a famous person, of course.

[00:28:37] He was a superstar after the Pearl Harbor attack, which in Japan was in the newspapers everywhere.

[00:28:43] But after the war, he was disabled.

[00:28:46] He had lost a leg, and he came to see him, and he confronted Fushita.

[00:28:50] You know, why would you serve the God of our enemies after all this destruction?

[00:28:54] You're disloyal to Japan.

[00:28:56] You're disloyal to the emperor.

[00:28:57] And he came there with the intent purpose to kill him, and he could have easily done so.

[00:29:03] So what happens in this conversation is Fushita explains that he's completely loyal to Japan.

[00:29:10] He served the emperor, and he even met the emperor, which is true.

[00:29:14] But that his loyalty was misplaced.

[00:29:16] That is, we cannot give the kind of loyalty to a human being that belongs only to God.

[00:29:22] And that was his retort back to this assailant.

[00:29:25] And that made the assailant think about what he was saying.

[00:29:29] And it's, I have a friend at Japanese National who was in the US, excuse me, in the Japanese Self-Defense Force.

[00:29:35] And he said he heard Fushita speak to his group.

[00:29:38] This was, you know, in the 1960s.

[00:29:41] And he was, he thought, well, this guy is an incredible person, but why in the world would you become a Christian?

[00:29:48] He thought that was just crazy.

[00:29:49] But this man told me years later, he ended up, he was married and his children, they wanted to take them to church.

[00:29:57] So they took them to a church, and eventually he became a Christian.

[00:30:00] And then when I sat with him in a restaurant after I'd written the screenplay, he said, Martin, this scene at the end with this assailant, you must keep this in the book.

[00:30:07] It is the most important scene in the entire story.

[00:30:10] Now, I don't quite understand why he said that or why he believed that, but absolutely, I protected that story.

[00:30:14] It was in the book, and it will be in the movie.

[00:30:17] I do understand, and to some extent, because in the samurai culture, the notion of total loyalty to your lord is really key.

[00:30:28] And in Japan, the emperor was the lord.

[00:30:32] They felt he was a god incarnate on earth.

[00:30:35] And you had to have, as essentially a samurai, a warrior, you had to have that loyalty to that person.

[00:30:40] And now Fushida Tartar turns that around and says, I am now loyal to my real lord, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.

[00:30:48] That's exactly right.

[00:30:49] But how he got there is very interesting to watch.

[00:30:53] And what I've seen in people who read Wounded Tiger is they don't necessarily agree with the choices the characters are making, but it's a fascinating story.

[00:31:01] And they want to see where their journey goes and how it ends.

[00:31:04] Mm-hmm .

[00:31:04] I've had dozens of people say it was the best story they'd ever read in their life, the best world virtue story, the best love story.

[00:31:10] And when I've asked people what you don't like, one complaint I've gotten more than once is that they say the story ended.

[00:31:19] Yes.

[00:31:20] That was what they complained about.

[00:31:21] So I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get this in the theaters.

[00:31:25] I do have investors looking at it.

[00:31:26] It's a $125 million film, but I am confident that what God has begun, he'll complete.

[00:31:32] Well, you know, the story ended because Fushita goes on to be a major figure in Japan as a Christian, giving speeches, giving messages to people in Japan.

[00:31:44] But he also comes to the United States, which I found out in that CD that I heard because yours, your book ends there.

[00:31:50] But he ends up coming to the United States and there was some concern, you know, do you want the person who led the attack on Pearl Harbor coming to the United States to speak?

[00:31:58] And yet he was widely accepted, as I understood, and thousands would come and hear him.

[00:32:05] Yeah, it was a mixed reception.

[00:32:10] He wanted to lay a wreath at Pearl Harbor and the authorities refused.

[00:32:15] They wouldn't let him do it.

[00:32:17] And I can understand that.

[00:32:18] So the sentiment in America directly after the war was highly anti-Japanese in many ways because so many families had lost fathers and sons and brothers and friends

[00:32:28] who had been killed or disabled for life for no good reason other than to stop the Japanese from, you know, attacking other innocent nations and their aggression.

[00:32:40] So they were furious.

[00:32:41] I remember hearing a guy tell me that this was years ago.

[00:32:45] He bought a new Toyota and he wanted to show his grandfather.

[00:32:48] He drives it up his driveway and his grandfather opens the window and starts screaming curses to get that blankety blank piece of blank off my property.

[00:32:56] And the kid didn't quite understand.

[00:32:58] Why is he so mad?

[00:32:59] Well, if your best friend's head gets blown off next to you in Okinawa or Iwo Jima, you're like, I hate these people.

[00:33:07] And that's a human response.

[00:33:08] But in Christ, we receive grace.

[00:33:11] We receive mercy.

[00:33:12] Therefore, we can give grace and mercy to others.

[00:33:14] But the sentiments were very anti-Japanese.

[00:33:17] So I can understand.

[00:33:18] But Chichita did get pushback from people.

[00:33:20] But once they heard him speak, they knew that this was the real deal.

[00:33:23] He was being honest.

[00:33:25] And he could have had a career in the military as his best friend Gemna did after the war.

[00:33:29] But instead, he chose to live ultimately a life of poverty in just traveling and telling a story about what God had done for him.

[00:33:36] We'll be back with our final segment with Martin Bennett in just a minute.

[00:33:41] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:34:01] And we're back with our final segment with Martin Bennett, who wrote the book Wounded Tiger.

[00:34:07] And it is about Mithio Fushida, who led the air raid on Pearl Harbor, who later becomes a Christian.

[00:34:15] And also, Jake DeShazer, who was on the Doolittle raid, was captured in China by the Japanese and ended up spending the rest of the war in prison.

[00:34:25] But gets a Bible in there and reads it and becomes a Christian.

[00:34:29] Fushida becomes a Christian.

[00:34:30] They connect after the war.

[00:34:32] And they become really a powerhouse.

[00:34:35] Martin, why did you choose the name Wounded Tiger?

[00:34:38] What does that mean?

[00:34:40] Yeah, so Fushida was born in the year of the tiger.

[00:34:43] And the wounded tiger represents him.

[00:34:48] Because a tiger is an animal.

[00:34:50] It's a creature of great power and beauty.

[00:34:52] We all know what they are.

[00:34:54] And if you've ever been near one, they're huge.

[00:34:56] They're the biggest cats in the world today.

[00:34:58] But a wounded tiger is not able to reach its potential.

[00:35:01] And so Fushida had great goals for himself, but he couldn't achieve those goals.

[00:35:06] And those wounds that people have in our lives, either by our own choices or the choice of others,

[00:35:11] prevent us from reaching the potential of who we're supposed to be.

[00:35:14] The gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.

[00:35:16] He gives us those gifts to reach and fulfill our callings.

[00:35:21] But Fushida couldn't do that.

[00:35:22] But once his life was healed, then you can see it all come together in his life and who he was really supposed to be.

[00:35:28] He was supposed to be involved in warfare, but in spiritual warfare, not in physical warfare.

[00:35:33] And so it's the story of completion of God's purposes and plans in him as a beautiful, powerful creature who God made and blessed.

[00:35:43] And this guy gave his testimony thousands and thousands of times around the world, not just in the U.S., but in Japan and in Europe as well.

[00:35:53] It's a really amazing story.

[00:35:55] At the center of your book is really the issue of forgiveness, even during times like of war where people are so, you know, it's so hard to do that against your enemies.

[00:36:07] And yet we're at a time right now where we're seeing this in Ukraine.

[00:36:11] We're seeing it in Israel and the Middle East.

[00:36:13] What kind of message does your book carry over?

[00:36:16] What can we take from that?

[00:36:18] Yeah, that's a good question, buddy.

[00:36:20] On the very back cover of the book, there is a quote that says, remember the past, live for the future.

[00:36:26] This is actually from a Japanese national who read the book in Japanese, which it's been translated and released in Japan that way.

[00:36:33] And he was born in Hiroshima and he was very open.

[00:36:37] Now, Japanese people are generally not very open.

[00:36:39] I mean, less open than Westerners.

[00:36:41] Yes.

[00:36:41] So this guy really opened up his life to me.

[00:36:43] And he was very honest and very personal.

[00:36:45] And he talked about how the story affected him.

[00:36:48] And he really appreciated it deeply.

[00:36:50] He said, we need to remember the past.

[00:36:52] We need to live for the future.

[00:36:54] So in answer to your question about forgiveness, we have to learn the lessons of the past.

[00:36:58] As the famous quote is, those who forget the past, you know, are doomed to commit the same mistakes.

[00:37:04] I don't know exactly how the quote is, but it's something like that.

[00:37:06] And so we don't want to ignore the past.

[00:37:10] But in Japan, believe it or not, they don't study World War II.

[00:37:13] I talked to two businessmen in their 30s.

[00:37:16] And I'd heard this many times before.

[00:37:19] And I asked them, I said, so how much of World War II did you study in school?

[00:37:23] And both these guys were professionals.

[00:37:24] And the guys kind of smiled.

[00:37:26] They looked down and they looked up.

[00:37:28] He said, two pages.

[00:37:29] And this is why in Eastern culture, well, in Western culture, we have what's called a guilt-based moral structure.

[00:37:36] It's not exclusively guilt-based, but it's basically I shouldn't do that.

[00:37:40] I would feel guilty.

[00:37:41] That's wrong.

[00:37:42] But in Asia in general and Japan in particular, they have more of a shame-based culture.

[00:37:47] I shouldn't do that.

[00:37:48] What would my parents think?

[00:37:49] What would my friends think?

[00:37:50] What would my company think, et cetera?

[00:37:52] You see yourself in the eyes of others.

[00:37:54] So if you leave a wallet on a train with all your money in it, in Japan, you're going to get it back with the money.

[00:38:02] In America, you might get it back probably not the money or probably not either one, just depending on where you are.

[00:38:08] So getting back to this guilt-based and shame-based system in Japan, shame-based, they don't talk about the loss in World War II because it's shameful.

[00:38:20] It's like talking about an uncle who lost the prize fight.

[00:38:23] We don't talk about him.

[00:38:23] He's a failure.

[00:38:24] So they don't talk about World War II very much at all.

[00:38:27] They talk about no more Hiroshima.

[00:38:28] I was in Hiroshima on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, and they're very anti-war, anti-atomic weapons, no more war.

[00:38:38] And I'm against all that as well, you know, as much as is possible.

[00:38:42] But they don't really go through what happened.

[00:38:45] So this actually works to the benefit of the story of Fuchira and Wounded Tiger because when I've given this to Japanese nationals, both in English and in Japanese, they loved it.

[00:38:55] They just devoured it.

[00:38:56] One guy read the book three times, front to back.

[00:38:59] Another person said they wanted to share it with their entire English class.

[00:39:02] One person who read it was the associate producer of The Last Samurai.

[00:39:07] Her grandfather was an advisor to Emperor Hirohito.

[00:39:09] Her quote is on the back of Wounded Tiger.

[00:39:12] She thought it was absolutely phenomenal and said she'd love to be a part of the film once it gets going.

[00:39:17] So getting back to forgiveness, you cannot give what you do not have.

[00:39:20] So we may know we need to forgive people.

[00:39:23] We see this on television where there are court trials of horrific acts of murder and torture and rape, and people say, I will never forgive you.

[00:39:32] You know, I hope you rot and die in jail.

[00:39:34] I will never forgive you.

[00:39:35] And I think, well, this is an understandable sentiment.

[00:39:38] We can relate to that.

[00:39:40] But where does it lead to?

[00:39:41] It doesn't affect the other person in jail.

[00:39:44] It affects you.

[00:39:45] You're the one who suffers by not forgiving.

[00:39:47] And Jesus said, if you don't forgive others, you cannot be forgiven.

[00:39:51] So it's a lesson we have to first learn for ourselves before we can give it to others.

[00:39:55] Take a minute to talk about that.

[00:39:56] The Japanese were really open to some kind of message after the devastating loss.

[00:40:02] And so you've got people in Ukraine and the Middle East, Gaza.

[00:40:06] We don't know where that's going to end up yet.

[00:40:08] But people are open to the gospel after a devastating loss.

[00:40:14] Yes, they are open.

[00:40:15] But they're also skeptical because they've seen so many people say things and then it doesn't work out as they said.

[00:40:21] So what is really nice about the story of Wounded Tiger, I heard a quote years ago by Leonard Ravenhill who wrote the book Why Revival Cherries.

[00:40:30] He was a friend of A.W. Tozer's for those who might know.

[00:40:33] He had a quote that I've never forgotten.

[00:40:34] And he said, a person with an experience is never at the mercy of a person with an argument.

[00:40:40] Meaning the person in the Bible who said, I was blind, now I see.

[00:40:43] And the Pharisees said, well, it can't be Jesus.

[00:40:44] He's a bad person.

[00:40:45] He said, listen, I can't tell you who he is.

[00:40:47] All I can tell you is that I was blind, now I see.

[00:40:50] And Jesus Christ is the one who did it.

[00:40:52] So the story of Wounded Tiger is not a book of lessons of do this, don't do that.

[00:40:56] It's a demonstration of how people's lives are transformed.

[00:41:00] Three radically different lives, Jake DeShazer, Mitsuya Puchita, and even the Covell family.

[00:41:06] Although they were believers, their lives were put through the crucible of testing and trials that were horrific.

[00:41:13] And yet it comes out more beautiful than before.

[00:41:16] So the story of Wounded Tiger is a demonstration of how that transformation takes place.

[00:41:22] And that gives hope to anybody.

[00:41:24] So as we wrap this up, your book is available on Amazon and at the bookstores, I assume.

[00:41:30] You've got the audio version maybe coming out fairly soon.

[00:41:34] And then you're working on the process of a film version.

[00:41:38] Right.

[00:41:38] I'm working with one of the key producers on Hacksaw Ridge and investors to get the film done.

[00:41:43] But if you go to woundedtiger.com, you can see a book trailer and get more information on how all that is coming together.

[00:41:50] But you can also sign up if you want to be informed on progress on the book and film.

[00:41:55] And we're getting traction.

[00:41:57] I mean, every person I talk to, it goes one step further.

[00:41:59] I had a conversation with the producer of Lord of the Rings, among many others.

[00:42:04] And so we are slowly getting this thing into full funding and then pre-production.

[00:42:10] You know, you're a movie guy.

[00:42:12] You're a story guy.

[00:42:13] You're a history guy.

[00:42:14] And the problem with American films is they've been so shallow.

[00:42:17] They're just, they call them popcorn movies.

[00:42:20] After you see it, you just walk away and you don't care.

[00:42:22] Wounded Tiger is a story that lingers.

[00:42:24] I've had many people say once they read the book, they kept thinking about it for the next two or three days.

[00:42:28] What happened and why it happened.

[00:42:30] I've had many people read the book two or three times.

[00:42:32] One person told me he read the book seven times.

[00:42:34] He said he cannot wait to see the film.

[00:42:36] So that's just a couple of things.

[00:42:37] When I heard the CD, I told my wife, they need to make a film of this.

[00:42:41] And I am glad to know they're going to do it.

[00:42:43] Thank you so much, Martin, for joining us.

[00:42:46] Buddy, I appreciate your time and may God bless you.

[00:42:49] Thank you.

[00:42:50] And when we come back, we're going to go to Egypt.

[00:42:53] Egypt plays a major role in the Bible.

[00:42:56] And we're going to talk to Ramez Salama.

[00:43:00] And he is a guide there, took us on a tour of Egypt.

[00:43:04] So stay with us.

[00:43:05] We'll be right back on Point of View.

[00:43:11] In 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas.

[00:43:20] London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon.

[00:43:29] London was in many ways the center of the world economically, militarily and intellectually.

[00:43:35] Marx sought to destroy religion, the family and everything the Bible supports.

[00:43:40] Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers.

[00:43:45] Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth.

[00:43:49] It is truth for all of life.

[00:43:51] Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today?

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[00:44:02] when you sign up for the Viewpoints Commentary at pointofview.net slash signup.

[00:44:08] Every weekday in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time.

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