There is no picture to accompany this post.
My only reason for making this post is to direct your attention to a video for which you should — TODAY — take one hour to watch.
It is from a film made by Greg Mitchell.
It uses film shot by both Japanese and Americans in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
DUE WARNING — some of it is graphic.
Yes, some of the footage you will see has been made available in the more than 70 years since it was taken, but Mitchell has put it together with narration from participants, both American and Japanese.
What struck me was to read the assessment both of the US Military and of General Eisenhower that dropping the atomic bombs was not necessary to get Japan to surrender, that certainly before then end of 1945 that would have happened.
I have often wondered whether we would have been willing to use those weapons on Hitler’s Germany, whether besides anger over Pearl Harbor there was a further racial motivation to our using them against Japan, and in the case of Nagasaki, the city that was the center of Christianity in Japan.
This film is currently available to watch on Vimoe for free, courtesy of the Rio Film Festival. I do not know for how much longer.
It will take you about an hour. You may be shocked or saddened if you watch, but I strongly believe you should.
Here is the link.
And now, as much as I have ever used this word to end a post, I offer that one key word:
PEACE