@Smokin Joe
I do agree with you. My parents and grandparents felt the bombings were justified.
As for me, well, I was a month old during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I read John Hershey’s “Hiroshima†for AP World History class. So I’m coming in as a Monday morning quarterback.
I guess I had nightmares after September 11 that we would be nuked and I still do. I think this is why I’m the way I am on this issue. With the bombs of today, the carnage would be so much greater. But I do understand why we have them.
I guess, in a war situation we have evolved past cannons, guns and bayonets.
I remember living 50 miles south of D.C., and my Dad drawing circles with a compass on the map of MD, VA, and DC. We were far enough out to survive a hit on the Mall, but would have had to take the boat to Virginia across nine miles of Potomac River to get away. Those were tense days. No one in our family much discussed Hiroshima or Nagasaki, but the rare mention would produce comments to the effect of "we did what we had to to win, and the Bomb saved a lot of our guys".
As it turns out, it saved a lot of Japanese, too, even though the 'peaceniks' pushing for unilateral disarmament focused on the casualties of the Bomb. It wasn't so clear then that many of them were, in fact, communist agitators or sympathizers who wanted nothing more than to strip the US of nuclear parity, so we'd either be cowed into submission or be able to be defeated.
That didn't happen.
Einstein may or may not have been right about WWIV, but no war is won until the ground is occupied. Small arms, whether they be pointy sticks and rocks or knives, or AR-15s or M4s will always play a part in that.
September 11 was not so much about total destruction as humiliation, even though it was definitely destructive. The idea that a couple dozen fanatics could strike a blow deep in our country, at the Pentagon, at the trade center in the heart of New York City, and another plane likely destined for the Capitol (something from a Tom Clancy Plot), using commercial planes as guided missiles, brought the war home to the US. The casualties here shocked the nation.
The effect was much as you described. For the first time since U-boats roamed the Atlantic off shore and air wardens kept watch on the rivers and bays of both coasts, since Americans watched for invaders all around this nation, we felt vulnerable in a way that was foreign to an entire generation. And yes, the prospect of being on the receiving end of nuclear weapons is troubling indeed. Which is why both a deterrent force and the will to use it, if need be are essential to keeping the peace. It is an issue I dealt with growing up in that shadow of Mutually Assured Destruction, and now I have a ringside seat, with silos within 75 miles of where I sit. We'd see the flash and the clouds from a pre-emptive strike. That's one ticket I hope I never use, because the implications would be dire.
But WWII also proved that while you can bomb an enemy's towns to rubble, but short of the Bomb--the only time a nation has met with final defeat from the air, you still have to have the infantry move in. Canons, guns, and bayonets will likely never go out of fashion, unless something more lethal and portable comes along. So, we remain, a nation with a rifle behind every blade of grass. May it ever be so.
While that may seem Spartan in outlook, I do not intend it to. It is only that we have those willing to do the unpleasant work of what it takes to protect this nation that gives so many its citizens the ability to enjoy so much, and why I place such high value upon all who have served it.
