just back from Japan where I celebrated the wedding of my step-son and spent a week enjoying the gifts of Japanese grace and culture. I spent one day in Hiroshima at the Peac Park. On April 6, 1945 at 8:15 AM the U.S. dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima which up until then had not been bombed. Everyone was out~~ opening their shops, going to work or school when the bomb fell. Anyone within 2 kilometers of the blast died almost immediately, about 100,000 people, 40,000 more died soon after. The U.S. refused to just demonstrate our power in a benign location. Instead we unleashed our power supposedly to stop war. Words fail me as I attempt to describe the destruction. The voices of surviviors and the pictures of the children must be heard and seen in order to grasp the impact of this horror.
Yet in Hiroshima I was a welcomed guest. The school children at the exhibit called out to me, smiled and even a few, reached out for my hand. Somehow I am not their enemy, and I am grateful. Their humanity has survived. I hope we as Americans can say the same.
Ellen from Japan
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