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Two Books on War, Indigenous Peoples, and the
Environment
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2010-03-14 21:26:57
In his song, “War of Man,” from the 2004 album Harvest Moon, Neil Young describes the impact of war on the creatures of
the forest. They do not comprehend the conflict going on around them and seek safety amongst the bullets, bombs, and
poison gas. This song came to me as I read Nancy Bo Flood’s just-published novel for tween and teen readers, Warriors in
the Crossfire (Front Street Books, 2010). Flood’s novel takes place on the South Pacific island of Saipan in the fateful
months of May and June 1944, when advancing American forces sought to dislodge thousands of Japanese troops on their
way to Japan itself. Flood’s main character, Joseph, is an indigenous Pacific islander, and his best friend and cousin, Kento,
is half-Japanese. apanese had lived on Saipan since 1922 as a result of a League of Nations mandate
following the First World War and Germany’s surrender of the island. By the start of the Second World War, Saipan had
become a Japanese military garrison, and the few thousand indigenous people of Chamorro and Carolinian
(Rafalawasch/Rapaganor) heritage were vastly outnumbered by 25,000 Japanese and part-Japanese civilians and 30,000
Japanese troops. Flood portrays the subjugation of the indigenous people: Joseph is one of only three
Rafalawasch/Rapaganor boys allowed to attend school beyond the third grade. His older sister’s husband cuts cane for the
Japanese for near-slave wages. Ultimately, the husband, as well as Joseph’s father, will be forced to work to their deaths to
build a military airstrip so Japan can defend the island. When the American invasion comes, both boys must become the men
of their respective households and find ways to help their families survive. Joseph’s father warns the boy not to seek refuge
with Kento’s family, because the Japanese will surely turn on their indigenous neighbors. In the days before he goes into
forced labor, he shows his son a cave with stockpiled supplies where Joseph is to lead his family. Later, Joseph learns that
the Japanese have ordered a mass suicide of all military and civilian personnel on the island, and he rushes to save his two
half-Japanese cousins. Warriors in the Crossfire shows the impact of war on children, on an indigenous population caught
“in the crossfire,” and on nature. Toward the end of the novel, a missile pulverizes a breadfruit tree near the cave where
Joseph’s family is hiding. The family members have stared longingly at the tree, unable to approach it and eat from it
because of all the shooting, and then it is gone. Rivers run blood-red, and once-familiar forests are piles of scorched stumps
following the battle. The children, however, are not passive observers of the violence. Seeking to be “warriors” in the first
chapter by hunting a sea turtle, both Joseph and Kento must confront their weaknesses. For Joseph, it’s his anger that has to
be tamed if he and his family are to survive; for Kento, it’s his unwillingness to stand up for himself and for what he
believes is right. Adult readers looking for a book that addresses similar themes should check out James Janko’s Buffalo Boy
and Geronimo (Curbstone Press, 2006), winner of the 2007 Northern California Book Award. While Warriors in the
Crossfire is set during the Second World War, Buffalo Boy and Geronimo takes place 25 years later, during the Vietnam War.
The story is told from three points of view—a 14-year-old Vietnamese boy who like Joseph must take responsibility for the
survival of his family, a U.S. soldier of Native American and Latino heritage who becomes separated from his unit and must
survive on his own, and a tiger who observes these two characters while trying to escape the violence. As the incendiary
bombs fall, plants and animals suffer the brunt of the destruction. In the very first chapter, the Vietnamese boy’s prized water
buffalo, the biggest and strongest in the village, meets a gruesome and uncomprehending end. While the animals do not
understand the violence, sadly the children do, and young Hai must try to save the animals along with the people, for the
animals are necessary to rice cultivation. And Sgt. Conchola, “Geronimo,” risks his own life to chase animals away from
napalm bombs, in return accepting their protection when he finds himself in the jungle alone. Both Warriors in the Crossfire
and Buffalo Boy and Geronimo portray war’s devastating impact on the environment and indigenous cultures. Both,
however, offer hope through characters who learn to control their anger and through the resilience of nature itself.
