Yes, I was sort of surprised to learn that you seem to imagine that the Japanese won WWII. Well, he did have a compelling presentation in high school on the topic of violent nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Makes you understand the ambiguous feelings of these Japanese people towards America. And also he probably seemed sort of cute to you, when you saw him playing guitar in Lance's Beatles band. As for me, I was not that interested in revisiting this topic later.
But you only remember ninth grade, and that was before I had adapted to the practicality of pantsuits and blue jean fashions of the time, so you would not remember 10th grade, when we heard about the failed plan to hire the mafia to do your assassination jobs. That plan was cancelled for various reasons that could be found probably in media reports. There was the thought that this use of assassins would be a step down from our previous virtue stance, and lead to a coarsening and/or degradation of our culture and thought, with assassinations becoming all to commonplace, . Yes, well, that could also be true. Right. Ah for the old glory days when we were a new country with a blank slate and higher ideals than that, but, oh well.