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I was sitting with my Father and mentioned about this being the anniversary of the Nagasaki A-Bomb. He was a Captain in the 45th ID [ETO since Sicily Invasion with 4 Amphibious Landings] who had advanced warning for assignment to PTO for the Japanese Invasion. With his experience with amphibious landings, his feeling was that he would have been 1st or 2nd wave in the invasion. His opinion was and is that these A-Bombs saved his life and nothing said or written since has changed that viewpoint.

In August of 1945 my Grandfather was wasting away in a Hitachi copper mine on mainland Japan. Guards set up machine guns in the camp and told them they would be killed the moment American forces landed on Japanese mainland soil.

My response to the morons who bemoan us dropping the bomb is that it was worth it if it saved ONE American, and I KNOW non-hypothetically it saved at least one, him. This shot is of him and Grandmother at POW ball in 1947.

He was in captivity for 3.5 years (he ended up staying in the Navy for a total of about 32.5 years). Both passed away in 2006/2007 and are laid to rest in Arlington.

I was sitting with my Father and mentioned about this being the anniversary of the Nagasaki A-Bomb. He was a Captain in the 45th ID [ETO since Sicily Invasion with 4 Amphibious Landings] who had advanced warning for assignment to PTO for the Japanese Invasion. With his experience with amphibious landings, his feeling was that he would have been 1st or 2nd wave in the invasion. His opinion was and is that these A-Bombs saved his life and nothing said or written since has changed that viewpoint.

Same is true of my late Grandfather. He was a Combat Engineer officer with experience ranging from Overlord, Cobra through The Bulge and the end of the war. He was too valuable to send home (I think he actually had his points) so was in Antwerp (I think) with orders to the Pacific and just waiting on a troopship to take him there when the Bombs were dropped.

The troopship took him to NYC instead. My Mother was born in July. I've made it a point to take my kids to the Smithsonian (Udvar-Hazy out at Dulles) on several August 6ths, let them see the Enola Gay and the self righteous, p*ssant protesters that always show up and then tell them my grandfather's story (in a slightly raised, serious tone within clear earshot of the protesters) and let them know that the protesters aren't just protesting the bombs but their existence, my existence and their grandmother's existence.

I'll tell you this: the Smithsonian has definitely learned it's lesson from the whole Enola Gay fiasco in the 1990s. When the tours reach the Enola Gay they have their best guy (Retired USAF Col. Scott Willey) standing there to take over the tour. The way he handles the protesters (they infiltrate the tour groups) is truly outstanding, responding to their moral and hyper-emotional outrage with clear, concise and respectful recitation of the facts of the matter and in doing so shreds their positions. I'll tell you something else as well, the last few times I've gone the counter-protesters have outnumbered the p*ssants by about a 5-1 ratio.