I didn't read all these posts but many of them make sense and reflect my feelings on the subject.
I'd like to add, anyone who has sympathy for the Japanese for having these two weapons deployed on their cities to do some research on the rape of nanking.
I'd like to share a story of a discussion that I had the other day that has a lot to do with this. During the normal course of talk on Iraq, the first reports that there were soldiers refusing a combat assignment involving a resupply mission (Hang them, or let the boys who didn't get their fuel/food/ammo on time tape a grenade to them) there was a talk of 'nuke the middle east' made in a very light tone by someone I know. Someone who felt strongly anti-nuclear weapon (I'd un-invent them if I could, don't get me wrong) and mentioned Japan. They spoke of those poor innocent civilians and how only a few radical leaders (I wasn't aware that Japan had a congress, just to give insight to this person's mind) spurred the war on.
This really lit the fire for me. I asked him if he'd heard about the rape of Nanking. "Do you mean Martin Luther King's wife?" OH BOY! I proclaimed to myself. I spoke to him about some of the events that happened there in the late '30s. Chinese men tied to a post and used for bayonet practice. Chinese women tied up and raped, repeatedly. Chinese girls as young as a few years the same. Burying hundreds of people at a time up to their heads in a field, and running them over with trucks. Live target practice. Officers, whom in military circles are by default defined as gentlemen, would see fit to behead a civilian on his knees. One of the most inspirational things I've heard is a survival story told firsthand, of a man on his knees before a Japanese colonel (or equivilant) about to be beheaded. He disgraced the colonel by turning to him and speaking (translated, and to the best of my memory) "I accept my fate, but be prepared to accept yours when the gods have their revenge."
When I told him that there is much more to it than those, he should educate himself on prewar atrocities committed by the Japanese on the Chinese before he spoke of their inherent status of innocent.
My grandmother's brother is entombed in the Arizona. We think he was an ammunition loader for the big guns.
My grandfather on my mother's side was in the 29th Infantry Division as an artillery spotter who landed at Omaha beach. Dog Green sector. If this confuses you, watch the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan and see the little blue and white Yin/Yang symbols on the sleeves of those kids, he was one of them. Wounded twice, sent home on a ship leaving the German port city of Bremen (Dramatized in the movie "Memphis Belle").
Grandfather on the Father's side was in the 28th infantry division. If you have never heard of the Hurtgen Forest, do some reading. Winter '44, just before the Battle of the Bulge, in which he also fought attached to another infantry unit after being wounded in the first days of fighting in the Hurtgen.
Great Uncle (Called him Grandpa anyway) also on mother's side was Headquarters company, 506th PIR, 101AB Div. Combat jumps during Overlord and Market Garden. Wounded twice in Normandy. A friend of his from Camp Toccoa wrote in his book Parachute Infantry (David Kenyon Webster, you may recognize the name from Band of Brothers...same man) that in order to make a country not want war, you must show the true face of war to the citizens of that country. Meaning, if the battle is in a far off field, the citizens do not feel the effects. If stray artillery shells level your house in a flash and bang, you will be less inclined to want to see the face of war ever again and do you all you can to see to it.
Great Uncle finished the war flying F4U Corsairs after joining the service in '38 and working as a mechanic. Flew with VMF-223, I had the honor of flying in his same flight during an Air Warrior scenario, which was a real neat experience for me. Two probable air-to-air victories. 4 planes destroyed on the ground. Bailed out and rescued by a Navy PBY just inside our lines after losing nearly half his remaining fuel after being shot up.
I don't think I'd get a different answer from any of these men, none of whom are alive now, that that of dropping the atomic bomb was the right decision and during war, its you or the other guy. You do all you can to make sure it's the other guy. Patton said something to that effect I believe. Anyway, during war the rules get thrown out the window because the only thing everyone can agree on is they want it to end.
As I mentioned, we should have dropped the bombs. We did drop the bombs. F*** anyone who says otherwise because they are a bleeding heart tree hugger who is attempting to make up for an insufficent fallice by waving their pretty rainbow flag in the name of what they think is righteous.
