“There Could Be No August 6th Without December 7th."

 "Just as I hold no grudge against the people of Viet Nam, nor even Jane Fonda, history must be viewed in context." Hugh Oldham 

 

On August 6th, 1945 , the United States deployed the first nuclear device used in warfare, when the Enola Gay dropped “Fat Man” on Hiroshima Japan.

 

 

The point of the marquee statement is that the events of August 6th, '45 would have not have happened without the events of December 7th, 1941, when the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor Hawaii.

                        Illustration of the damage to the USS Arizona

Historical revisionism continues in our country.  As the number of WWII veterans leaves us to “go west” and the over all percentage of combat veterans decreases in our general population, the United States’ “Wuss Factor” increases and a growing number of persons want view historical events in the context of the warmth and security  we enjoyed prior to September 11th, 2001 .

 

Maybe the destruction of the World Trade Center and the deaths of 3,000 of our fellow citizens have reminded our people that there are persons in this world who would destroy the United States and all its citizens because of distorted political or religious concepts.

 

We must view past actions in the light and context of past events.  Belittling leadership and/or being highly critical of past actions with the aid of perfect hindsight leads to a situation where inaction becomes the preferred course by those in leadership.  It just maybe that the reasons for the lapses in law enforcement and governmental action prior to 911can be traced to this inclination of "historians" with a political agenda to judge any action only in the context of their agenda.

 

I support the use of the Atomic Bomb in ending WWII because I have a direct personal connection to its use: my father was scheduled to participate in the amphibious landing of the Japanese Home Islands .  Extrapolating from the causalities in the battle for the island of Okinawa , American causalities were expected to be in excess of 1,000,000 men in the battle for the Tokyo Plain alone.

 

Simply stated, without the Atomic Bomb, I would have never been born.      

 

 

I owe my very life to the leaders of the WWII generation who had the courage, the vision the fortitude to make the hard life and death decisions that ended a terrible war.  

 

 

 

 

 

World War II cost over 28 million persons their lives, without the atomic bomb, millions more would have died and you, like me, may never have been born to read these words.