August 6, 1945 was surely the birthday of hundreds of beautiful children, as was august 9. To the whole of the world, though, August 6th, 1945 is synonymoust with "Hiroshima", and August 9th "Nagasaki". For those were the two days when the only two atomic bombs ever used on humans were dropped on Japan. And this has beome the only thing that anyone talks about on these days.
As each year passes our countries try to move closer together. We have our economic summits, our peace coalitions, and bans on short range nuclear weapons, none of this can change history. We try to move towards world peace, and try to do it in spite of all that happened.
The question always arises, "why did they drop the bomb". And I am tired of hearing a bunch of people say that the U.S. did it just to bully around a smaller country.. Some people just can't seem to understand that some things happen in war that are truly inhumane. The bombs were dropped for one simple reason, at the time that was what needed to be done in order to advance our war effort. The bombs did their job well. Many would ignore that thousands of people from all sides had already died, and the war was going nowhere. Dropping the bombs did more to help end the war than anything else could have.
Still others say that the bombs were dropped just as an experiment, or that the U.S. was just power hungry. To these people I put forth another date, December 7, 1941. This was, of course, one of the most infamous dates in the war. That was the day that Japan attacked a harbor in Hawaii(even though the U.S. wasn't committed to the war effort at the time. Many people to this day are still bitter about the way Japan did this, all the circumstances, but, Japan was just trying to eliminate a perceived threat, as the U.S. did at Hiroshima, then Nagasaki.
Of course the atomic bombs on Japan are quite a bit different than the strafing run on the coast of Hawaii, the only reason I even mention it here is that I want to put in your mind that the U.S. did not just drop the bombs to be obnoxious. There was a war going on, war on a global scale.
I am sure that most people understand that war is nothing more than a strategic battle between the leaders of the countried, but I am not so sure if everyone knows that the only way to gurantee a victory in war is through attrition. That is, whoever has the most troops will win (given equal technology and arms) If you have a force of ten-thousand against a force of two thousand, one side is going to die quicker just because of the numbers.
I am an american, and I am damn proud of it! I hate what happened at Pearl Harbor, but I have to understand that it was an act of war, even though the U.S. was not committed to the war, and a strategic move by Japan. This was probably the most efficient single act the Japanese made in the duration of the war.
This brings me to the days in question, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I will not even attempt to have the arrogance to say that I know why we chose to drop the bombs, but, we did. All I know is that, for better or worse, we did. And that single act started a windfall of events that brought the whole of the war effort to an end.
This was a state of war, and I would like you to consider this, how long could the war have gone on if we hadn't dropped the bomb? This act may have killed thousands (and still is killing to this day) but it saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the long run. The world knew at that point that the U.S. was not a kicking bag, we were gonna win, even if it meant killing them all...
So when you think of this day, think of it not as a turning point in a war, or in history, but a turning point for all humanity. This was the only firsthand experience we ever had with the atomic bomb, and, hopefully, will also be the last.
The lives that were saved far outweigh the lives that were lost. And that is the key to winning the war. For the U.S. it was the ultimate in attrition, thousands killed, no casualties, and as disgusting as it seems, that is the ideal war-state situation...
