Posted on 08/11/2010 7:19:41 AM PDT by nuconvert
WASHINGTON: Some 25 years ago I was asked to speak at a ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of the death of the famous war correspondent, Ernie Pyle, who had been killed by a Japanese sniper on a small island off Okinawa in the last days of World War II. The memorial was held in the Punch Bowl, the national military cemetery overlooking Honolulu.
It was a mid-morning affair that attracted more than a thousand spectators, most of them veterans of the bloody campaigns in the Pacific from Guadalcanal to Iwo Jima and Okinawa ― all of them "Ernie's boys.'' In the mist and sunshine of a glorious Hawaii morning with the weathered faces of America's best generation surrounding me in campaign hats and medals, it was one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had.
I recalled that day and the memories of loved ones lost during that bleak time of my boyhood as I read that Barack Obama had deployed the American ambassador to Japan as an official delegate to the 65th anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, a decision that at best can only be described as insensitive to the feelings of millions of Americans who still remember vividly the pain and anguish caused by the Japanese Empire in World War II.
How surprising that Obama, who grew up not far from the sacred ground of Pearl Harbor and the cemetery where the victims of Japanese treachery lie, would become the first American chief executive to do so since the conflict in the Pacific ended in August of 1945 with the only two atomic detonations in anger in history.
(Excerpt) Read more at koreatimes.co.kr ...
I am not 2nd guessing history and I’ve heard all the arguments for and reasons why we dropped the bomb. Yet, even so, I think of the children happily playing in the streets, the moms reading books to thier children, and all those kinds of things as a bomb comes falling down from the sky. Rather than fight army to army, we chose to drop hellacious bombs on civilians, it just doesn’t sit well with me, and I hope it never happens again. I’m proud to be an American and greatful to the Good Lord that I was born here, and my children, nonetheless, when I think of those bombs, I think of those things.
While hear what you are saying, we are losing/have lost the idea of what war is. There are no civilians in war.
I believe this is why such things as the Flight 93 Memorial and Ground Zero mosque are not splitting hairs when discussing conquest. The objective IS conquest, not fighting army to army.
We are and have been in G-war for a long time. There are no lines, even if some people wear skirts.
There are millions of AMERICAN kids who would never enjoy the love of a grandfather.
We finished it. (And saved countless lives in the process.)
We need to finish the mess with the muslims now.
I think we need to look back at what would have happened if we hadn’t used the bomb. President Truman had the X Plan. This plan, if used, would have totally wiped out the Japanese Nation. Millions of people would have died in Japan. Americans, at that time, had had enough of the Japanese war machine and they knew that they would have never quit fighting. The X Plan was designed to wipe the Japanese off the face of the earth. None of it is good, just as war is hell I guess.
Pal? It was world war. Their leaders were continuing to fight . Even after the first bomb, they refused to quit.
The lobbing of those bombs is what brought peace and closure to that war.
Since then we rebuilt their economy and have been paid back many fold in goods , services and friendship.
Its too bad that Obama chooses to go on to frustrate/ destroy yet another American relationship with its allies. For him? Its all about dhiminishing and marginalizing America. Shame on him, shame on us for allowing it.
Well my friend, I tend to differ with you on this idea. You just totally justified Jihad and terrorism in my mind, we don’t have to argue on this however. My thoughts on the bomb are my thoughts, they are true to my heart, the fact that we dropped the bombs on civilians bothers me, and for those reasons I previously stated, what else can I say? I am not down on America, just stating what probably many others must feel as well (but for the right reasons).
Yep, like I said, heard all that 1,000 times before ...
Hiroshima was a major port, army facility and storage area (but not a fortress itself), and was one of the few Japanese cities not burned out by firestorms - Several of which killed more of your “peaceful” civilians than either of the two A-bombs did. ALL Japanese “civilians” at that time were in the war effort building arms and support hardware in in-home machine shops and assembly areas. Few factories were in place as in the US.
WITHOUT the A-bombs to convince the Emporor to demand the general end the war, an estimated 3-5 million Japanese “civilians” would have killed themselves in kamikaze-style suicide (armed mass charges) attacks during the invasion the next months by the US and Soviet armies.
Your attitude doesn’t reflect the facts.
Ditto that, not with a Muzie president who should go first.
In WWII Germans bombed civilian targets and allies replied in kind. Likewise, we regularly bombed civilian targets in Japan. More Japanese civilians dies from conventional bombs that the nuclear bombs.
Now if we have a bomb that accidentally kills a dozen or so civilians, it makes the front page of the newspapers (at least it did when Bush was president).
Of course, our enemy regularly kills civilians and there is little outcry from anyone.
Goodle Operation Downfall, the umbrealla plan for Operations Coronet and Olympic. These spell out in detail the U.S. Order of Battle and what the human cost would’ve been had we opted for the invasion of the Home Islands rather than use the atom bomb. HST did the right thing.
Make that “Google.”
We have reached a point in modern history when our own citizens would rather sacrifice the life of their neighbor, coworker, or the father and mother of their children's friends instead of the murdering enemy.
I never said we did the wrong thing, I said it bothers me, that’s it, what’s the big deal, can I not have those feelings about dropping bombs on families and children, and if I didn’t have those feelings would I even be human? Sheeze you guys are touchy, you’re not telling me anything I didn’t already know about the war, I even said that in my first reply to this thread, yet here come all the historians to convince me my feelings are wrong.
Those bombs saved the lives of 5 to 10 million Japanese.
Creating peace with Japan while leaving the military in control would’ve cost the lives of many more Japanese, Koreans, Chinese and others.
Your OUT of your freaken mind!!
Hieroshima was chosen because it was a military target, not to incinerate civilians.
We killed MORE civilians in the fire-bombing of Dresden, and THAT was not a civilian target.
After the suicidal attacks and losses on Okinawa and Iwo Jima, the U.S. RIGHTLY decided that a landing of military forces in Japan would have incurred unacceptable casualties in the lives of American boys - TOO MANY of whom had ALREADY died to kill the racist bastards who ran the Japanese Empire. It would ALSO have incurred HIGHER civilian losses in Japan - NOT THAT IS THE SLIGHTEST CONCERN TO ME.
ADDITIONALLY, even AFTER the bombing of Nagasaki, the Japanese Imperial Command was STILL bent on fighting. We had a THIRD nuclear bomb on the way. Only AFTER massive conventional bombing of Tokyo did they FINALLY decide to surrender.
BY THE WAY, the Germans were WORKING on a nuclear bomb before we defeated them. THEY would have had NO scruples about bombing New York with it.
Your misplaced social concerns are the DIRECT result of cultural equivalence and the failure to assess WHY we fighting the Japs.
Ask the people of Korea and citizens of China, and the survivors of Nanking, Bataan and other victims of Imperial Japanese Racism what THEY would have thought about agonizing over dropping the bomb on these bastards.
WE WERE RIGHT - VERY RIGHT and the JAPS were WRONG - VERY WRONG!!!
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