Returning the Sword

In 1945, just after the end of World War II, Captain Orval Amdahl brought home a Japanese sword as a sou­venir of war. Sixty-eight years lat­er, he gave it back.

Orval Amdahl grew up in rur­al Minnesota and enlist­ed in the Marines dur­ing World War II. In August 1945, the United States dropped atom­ic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, end­ing the war. Soon after, Orval’s divi­sion was sent to keep the peace in Nagasaki, and the dev­as­ta­tion he wit­nessed there haunt­ed him. When he returned home, he tried to move on, but he couldn’t for­get the war―or the sword. And many years lat­er, at the age of ninety-three, he got a chance to do some­thing incred­i­ble. He met with the fam­i­ly of the sol­dier who had owned the sword and returned it to them.

A pow­er­ful sto­ry of war, peace, and reconciliation.