Posted on 08/05/2005 8:26:29 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
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Congratulations on your op-ed, and thanks for posting this. The horror of what happened and what might have happened serves as a reminder to us to be strong so we can deter adventurism such as that in which Japan was engaged for years and which finally brought us into the war.
Thanks Harry!
WARNING - If you do not like the way we finish wars, do not start one with us.
Uncle Sam and his Misguided Children
We celebrated the bombing of Hiroshima the other night. Raised a few beers and were glad my dad and many other Americans who were on Okinawa didn't have to die.
Better the side that started the war should die. Didn't take long to end WWII after we dropped a coupla those big boys.
Thank you for your compliments.
I have my own reasons for supporting the use of atomic weapons against Japan. My dad (who passed away three weeks ago last Wednesday) served on a Navy LST and would have participated in the invasion of Japan. Judging from all I had read, there was a pretty good chance he would have not made it past his 22nd birthday if he had done so. The libs who whine about dropping the bomb can kiss my a$$. No Hiroshima and Nagasaki= No Big Red Clay. to quote Gene Hackman in "Crimson Tide" - "Drop that motherf---er, twice!"
Thanks Harry Truman.
Additionally, you can imagine the fallout that would have been involved if Marshall's tactical nuke plan had been used. Horrifying.
I am very thankful that my dad didnt see alot of combat. He told me that the closest to combat he came was depth charging subs on several occasions. My uncles were another story however. His two older brothers both saw combat. The oldest brother was wounded in Europe and the next oldest served on a destroyer in the South Pacific. My uncle Herman (my dad's sister's husband) served from the day after DDay until 1946. His Nebraska National Guard unit won the most Presidential Unit Citations of any in the war. Nebraska ETV made a documentary about him and his buddies that they show every Memorial Day weekend. That guy had terrible violent nightmares until the day he died at age 84. (He tried to strangle my aunt in his sleep when he was in his sixties because he thought he was being attacked by a Nazi soldier) A good neighborhood friend of my dad and uncles (who was also a great family friend until he died a few years ago) got hit by a shell in France. He layed unconscious in a ditch for two days until the corpse unit came along to collect his body and found that he was still alive. He got one of the first experimental knee replacements and went on to farm until he was in his 70's. I guess my point is that I am glad that my pop didnt have to go through all that because of the decision that Truman made. Not to mention I got to be born.
Excellent work.
If you want to talk numbers, remember this from "Why Truman Dropped the Bomb", Weekly Standard, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/894mnyyl.asp?pg=1
" This brings us to another aspect of history that now very belatedly has entered the controversy. Several American historians led by Robert Newman have insisted vigorously that any assessment of the end of the Pacific war must include the horrifying consequences of each continued day of the war for the Asian populations trapped within Japan's conquests. Newman calculates that between a quarter million and 400,000 Asians, overwhelmingly noncombatants, were dying each month the war continued. Newman et al. challenge whether an assessment of Truman's decision can highlight only the deaths of noncombatant civilians in the aggressor nation while ignoring much larger death tolls among noncombatant civilians in the victim nations."
The Japanese deserved the two bombs.
My great uncle Delbert was wounded by a machine gun in the Battle of the Bulge while his platoon was retreating. They were sure he was dead, and he couldn't move or shout at first, so they left him for dead. He could hear the crunch of their boots as they ran away. He's still alive today.
Thank you.
I respect the Japanese people greatly on many counts, but consider the level of self-delusion it requires to think that Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an unjustified attack on an innnocent population. No wonder they ban books about their atrocities.
Oh, forgot to say thanks for the info and link.
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