Apology?

Interestingly enough, my last daily diary in my just completed volume of the series was all about salvaging one individual life. (See "Valerie". July blogs) The first of this series is all about the taking of multiplied thousands of lives.

Only one word fits here.

Irony.

I was just watching television; something of which I do too much. At any rate, as the BBC broadcaster turned to an exceptionally controversial topic, I paused with whatever I was doing at the time, and gave the news anchor my full attention.

 

Today is August 9, 2015, not only the 46th anniversary of my first marriage, but the 70th anniversary of the delivery of history's second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki.

 

On August 9, 1945 as many as 100,000 civilians lost their lives in the inferno which was only a moment before an intact bustling city comprised of Japanese citizens of all ages; doing the things which common people do, at any given time, throughout the earth.

Only three days prior to this planned human catastrophe, the citizens of Hiroshima met a similar fate, and the precedent of two strikingly similar occurrences was set. It is estimated that the first event robbed the world of half again more souls than the second event.

Caroline Kennedy, President John Kennedy’s daughter, is America’s current ambassador to Japan. And since that country is 13 hours ahead of the present 2:45am time in Florida, USA, it is pertinent to mention here that a ceremony has just been completed commemorating that awful holocaust in the city of Nagasaki; (a ceremony which our ambassador attended, as she also attended a similar one in Hiroshima).

Suddenly, the broadcaster said something which shocked me out of my complacency.

“President Obama has considered traveling to Japan at some point in his tenure as the nation’s chief executive, and while not apologizing, at least expressing condolences to the Japanese people for the deaths of a quarter million of its civilian citizens.”

I did a double take.

This president has expressed apologies to other nations for our part in this or that historical circumstance in the past. It seems he is about to do it again.

Well, as a retired soldier this apology thing just doesn’t set well with me; most especially in this particular case.

On December 7, 1941 our naval outpost at Pearl Harbor was bombed by dozens of Japanese aircraft killing thousands of unsuspecting members of our armed forces, as well as numerous citizens of Hawaii.

The clock had been figuratively wound up, and would tick tock its way towards the eventual destruction of the nation of Japan.

While it is altogether reprehensible that millions of military and civilian lives have been sacrificed on the altar of war, those who land the first blow, cross the first border, draw the first blood are always subject to the potential retribution such a decision warrants. And there is nothing politically correct about war. You don’t fight a war with your hand tied behind your back. Vietnam taught us that.

My own father, as well as my father in law served in the U.S. Navy during the conflict to which I have alluded here. Doc Vaughn, my wife’s father, served on a United States ship sailing perhaps a dozen miles off the coast of Japan when the two “big bombs” were dropped. It is thought that the cancer he contracted in his later life might be attributed to his presence there.

Apologize?

Express contrition?

No, but perhaps “regret” is an appropriate word.

I regret that President Truman found it necessary to make the decision he made to rain ruin from the air on the unsuspecting cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. How inestimably awful that so many precious civilian lives were snuffed out. If I were a father or mother, son or daughter, brother or sister of someone who died in the fiery holocaust, no doubt I would be shattered for life, and biased towards a different view of the matter.

Our president was working with an immense body of information when he made that decision, and it was a choice that he did not take lightly. Truman’s advisors had made him aware that the planned invasion of Japan would cost America as many as a million military lives, and cost Japan countless military and civilian lives, as well.

Old Harry had been advised that people of both genders, and all ages would meet us on every beach, and that they would be armed with rifles and rocks and everything in between. I have little doubt I would have made the same decision our president did.

There was little choice but to use the force the American government had spent billions of dollars, and the efforts of thousands of our citizens to develop.

Apologize?

I think not.

Those who bemoan the fate of a quarter million Japanese, as the result of two God-awful bombs, are well to do so, but let us not forget that had an invasion of Japan taken place, the loss of life would have numbered in the millions.

If our current Commander in Chief apologizes to our former enemy, and prostrates himself in the traditional Japanese bow, he won’t be doing it in my name, nor with the acquiescence of the majority of our current and former military members; many of whom, as the result of Truman's decision were given the opportunity to live out rich productive lives, and see the birth of their children, and grandchildren. (And paradoxically enough, this may also be said for hundreds of thousands of Japanese who were spared the carnage of fighting on the beaches).

We did what we had to do, and God forbid we ever have to do it again. However, given similar circumstances, God forbid we fail to do whatever has to be done to destroy tyranny, and assure the survival of this and the other peaceful nations on this planet.

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 5