[bubbacluck]

Life was forever altered for Kitagawa and the rest of the world 62 years ago

I think it was also forever altered for any children of those who died at Pearl Harbor.

[ladyjane]

Now 73, Kitagawa travels the world as part of an effort to educate people on the destructive power of nuclear weapons.

I wonder if he mentions Pearl Harbor in his travels.

[Rate_Determining_Step]

After Japan's behavior in the war, it's amazing that the place still exists. As incomprehensible it is to believe that there was any country more evil than the Third Reich. there was: The Empire of Japan.

After all I've seen and gotten used to over the years, their savagery and inhumane behavior still makes me shake my head.

Ya, sucked to get nuked, Shouldn't have started the war. They got off REAL EASY for what they did.

[WorkingClassFilth]

One feel empathy for a single person. One can even feel revulsion because of the thought of 200,000+ casualties dying because of this horrific weapon.

However, it was less than 20% of the projected casualties (on both sides) if this measure wasn’t taken.

Nobody likes the thought of radical surgery if their life is on the line. The alternative...is death.

Nearly every person alive (99.999% of the G.I.s) during that era knew that it was the right thing to do. In fact, it was the merciful option.

Debate on the point is nothing more than revisionist subverion and those who hold to any other option are imbeciles living in a utopian fantasy - to join them is to invite death.

[mkjessup]

The new American Translation for the cities of ‘Hiroshima’ and ‘Nagasaki’ works out to something roughly equivalent to “Here’s payback for Pearl Harbor ya little Nips!”

[Fresh Wind]

Let me see. If, by chance, the Japanese had developed the atomic bomb before we did, they would not have used it on American cities. Right?

[AmericanInTokyo]

My reply and thinking has always been, thankful that the War could come to a conclusion primarily over the bombings of those two cities, and so sad that it engendered so many civilian casualties on the other hand. It was evil, but in large part it was necessary. Sometimes situational ethics takes over on these issues. No one who visits the museum in Hiroshima cannot go away sad for the people on the human level, unless one is a monster, so devoid of a human soul and compassion. On the other hand, the military clique that ruled Japan at that time were also abject monsters, and would have fought to the absolute final boy and girl, no doubt. It is a shame we had to do what we did, but, well, we did what we did and had to do.

I could never countenance some thinking by Freepers that, "we should have fried more Japs"; that is no solution and is actually sick. One can be thankful that it did NOT take a third bombing. For both them and for our own sanity and morality.

[adversarial]

Thats nothing...let me tell you about my Dads life after the war living in constant pain unable to walk after
being shot through both legs by a japanese machine gun on Okinawa

[usmcobra]

Send him to Tehran to preach peace, our hands have been tied since August 6 1945.

[USMC Brat]

PING