Maybe I really never wanted to know about this.
I have heard the stories, learned about in school, saw countless articles over the years, but guess I never wanted to know about it.
I just followed a link on Google news, and this time I guess wanted to know more. After reading some very well-written accounts of what happened here, I am rather disgusted at what was done, regardless of how "necessary" it was claimed to be.
Casulaties of war are one thing, but pure human suffering caused by mankind leaves me with a sick feeling in my stomach.
IMHO (and I'm sure I'm opening a big can of worms...)
Very sad truths that unfortunately (and ashamedly) the majority of the American public refuses to acknowledge or teach their children...
Yep, unlike the Japanese who regularly include their participation in war atrocities against China, Phillipines and American POW's. But it's not like they started the war ...oh, wait...
Like you said - can o' worms. You can argue and be "ashamed" all you want but the fact is that were it not for the dropping of the bombs, the war would've lasted a lot longer, there would be hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers lives lost and the Japanese would likely be extinct.
breaking my policy of engaging in political threads... bad! bad Ken! Disengaging...
I wish wars did not happen. I look at Iraq and Afghanistan today and ask myself 'what are we fighting for'? History has shown time and time again that war is not the answer yet mankind when faced with a problem so often resorts to a barbaric, primitive instinct to kill.
Powerful image, but it could stand for many things other then what happened 60 years ago.
I know it could, but I frequent the waterfront a lot and I know for a fact that this was done specifically for the Hiroshima remememberance. There were many other silhouettes as well: adults, children, animals, etc.
I recall in the 6th grade (1960-61) looking up, in the school's encyclopedia, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, seeing the photographs and afterward, being caught in a melancholic contemplative mood for the longest amount of time up to that point in my life. In 1968, I saw death and destruction during service in the Vietnam War. Subsequently, I am the author of "A Poet's Trilogy" with a chapter titled "The Heart Of Peace." A few of the briefer thoughts from that chapter:
War is
Nothing more
Than acting on
Bad memories of
Bitter feelings
Two people starting war seems
Too few.
Two parties needed
To sign for peace terms seems
Too many.
Hate is the
Enslavement
Of strength
Of character.
To be truly at peace, one must be free.
No slave ever spent a day during which
there was no war.
To forgive
Frees both.
Peace is not the absence of war;
But the absence of greed.
I am the fundamental soldier of greed.
Every moment offers me the choice
To strategize an offensive campaign
Or to abide in armistice.
Sometimes I get caught in the spiraling race and forget to step aside and realize nothing is beyond its purpose. Peace is not a condition within living history; it is a result of correctly understanding the value of life.
Peace only produces its fruit
As the farthest communities
Unite for the harvest.
We each live in our own heart,
Not in our nation.
We reside in our nation,
But not forever.
