82%. That is how many Japanese said they felt friendly toward America in autumn 2011. The highest number ever recorded in history. Do you know what the US military did to earn that? They dug. March 11, 2011. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake and a black tsunami swallowed northeast Japan. Sendai Airport disappeared under 300,000 cubic meters of debris. The runway lay buried in mud, cars, broken homes. The airport was officially closed. Nothing could land. American Marines went in anyway. They slept in sleeping bags in a frozen parking lot. They grabbed shovels and dug black mud shoulder to shoulder with Japanese workers. Day and night. No breaks. No cameras. While people were freezing in shelters without food, water, or medicine. 24,000 troops. 24 ships. 189 aircraft. Operation Tomodachi. 「Tomodachi」means friend. Nine days after the wave, transport planes were landing with supplies. Nine. Days. Then came April 3. An Air Force colonel flew over the beach beside the runway and looked down. Survivors who had lost their homes, their towns, their families, dragged trees across the sand with their bare hands. One by one. Meters long. They spelled a single word, placed exactly where only a landing pilot could see it. ARIGATO. The colonel said he was the one who felt grateful. People fighting for their lives had spent their last strength to thank him. That is what soldiers did. That is what survivors did. In 1945, our two nations were at war. In 2011, one dug through the mud for the other. And the other wrote thank you in the sand, so it could be read from the sky.