Sixty Years Ago
Sat., August 13, 01:39 PM
Sixty years ago. The news is full of references to the events of August, 1945. The U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Japan. The war was over. A statue is now being erected in Times Square in New York City to commemorate that famous photo of a sailor kissing a girl, the photo that was in Life magazine. Do I remember any of that?
Actually, not much. I was a preschooler. Anything I know is intellectual rather than emotional, from material I read much later. But I did know there was a war, and I was aware that people from our family were far away and in danger. (Even if I had no real perception of what the danger was.)
When news came of the Japanese surrender, everybody went outside and made noise. We were banging on pots with wooden spoons. The most vivid picture in my mind is of my little brother, in his yellow sun suit, knocking on Mother’s soup pot for all he was worth.
So when I noticed that “The Last Days of World War II” was on the History Channel this morning, I sat down to watch. The number of dead from around the world – both military and civilian – is beyond imagination. And the United States released a horror on the world that was even worse than the millions killed with the first bombing. We will forever ask ourselves, was it necessary?
I find myself saying it was, even as I realize that killing people conflicts with everything I say – indeed, everything I believe. But if it was a matter of killing the enemy to save our own people, I’m not fool enough to say we should have sacrificed a few million more. Not because the enemy was a different color or spoke a different language or followed a different religion, but because they attacked us. I can’t follow the reasoning that caused them to strike us, but I surely can understand defending ourselves!
There have been five wars in my lifetime – World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Bush I and Bush II. (Okay, Korea was a United Nations Police Action, but it had all the trappings of a war.) I simply cannot fathom the reason for four of them; we ought to have been able to work it out. Despite the obvious reasons for World War II, there were elements of racism on both sides, in both the Asian and the European theaters.
We’re still doing it. Neither we nor our opponents have learned anything from our past mistakes. We’re not even teaching our kids to use reason instead of weapons. I’m not feeling very optimistic today.
But I am feeling very grateful to all those men and women who stepped up to protect me and my future. If they hadn’t, I might not have had the right to complain.
