Sixty-two years ago today, at about 8:15am, a nuclear weapon was detonated in the sky over Hiroshima, Japan, killing about 70,000 people. About an equal number would die later as a result of injuries and radiation-induced illness. Only three days later, another bomb, more powerful, was dropped on Nagasaki. The hilly terrain limited the deaths to about 74,000 total. That’s a low-end estimate, by the way.
Two bombs. 214,000 humans.
These weapons were tiny by today’s standards, yet the effects were so horrific that they are practically impossible to conceive. I’ve visited the museums at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I’ve spoken with a survivor, and I’m sure I’ve only absorbed a tiny fraction of the horror. And I’m glad that’s all I can get. This isn’t HP Lovecraft; it’s the real thing. Too much of this kind of horror really can drive you insane.
I’m not trying to be political. I just think, if there’s any day on which people ought to take a moment to meditate on what "Nuke ’em ’til they glow!" really means, this is it. I remember, back during the Cold War, sitting in the high-school cafeteria with my fellow geeks, talking about world problems, and how, at some point, someone would always offer the stock solution: "Just nuke ’em."
Well, we had an excuse: we were testosterone-fueled, sexually frustrated kids, with textbooks that insisted that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings saved far more lives than they took. Turns out that’s not exactly true, that Japan was already offering to surrender. Turns out our leaders weren’t all that different from a bunch of high-school Judas Priest fans. They had the most powerful weapon ever created…do you really think they wouldn’t use it?
Seeing as our leaders don’t seem to have improved one bit, I call on you to just stop and think about it, if you haven’t already done so: Two little bombs. Two hundred and fourteen THOUSAND people.
Not 214,000 enemies. Yes, their country and our country were at war, and as wars go, it was about as unavoidable (on the American side) as wars can get. But now America isn’t the only country with nuclear weapons.
It could be us, someday. In fact, it probably will be. Somebody is going to use a nuclear weapon on somebody again one of these days, and we’re a big target, and we have this tendency to piss people off.
So–I’m serious here–think about your mom, your brother, your girlfriend, your child. Think about them reduced to a shadow on the wall. Or worse, surviving the initial blast, but being crushed under flaming debris, their faces melted off. Or covered with burns and vomiting out their stomach linings as radiation poisoning slowly kills them.
Sorry, I know that’s nasty, and I feel bad for writing it. But it happened to 214,000 people. And what makes it different from all the other ways we humans have developed to murder each other, is that it was just two little bombs.
How many bombs do we have now? And each of them far more powerful.
Am I calling for an end to nuclear weapons? Not really–though I’d certainly like to see it happen, that’s not my immediate purpose. I just hope that more people will stop and think about it. Let the comfort shields down for just a minute, and meditate on that horror. It’s already there, buried deep, I know. Let it rise to the surface, just for a minute.
This is the anniversary of the day that a nuclear weapon was first used to destroy a city. Soon, the last of the survivors of that event will be gone. We need to remember. We need to feel it, deep in our guts. We can’t just make nuclear weapons disappear. I’m realistic; I know America can’t unilaterally get rid of them while countries like North Korea have them. But we have to start somewhere, in order to get to the point where someday we can get rid of them.
And that starts with feeling that horror. Not horror-movie horror. The real thing: Hiroshima horror. It’s amazing how many people trivialize it. We need people to take it seriously, and hopefully, some of those people will get into positions of power, and over the next few generations they’ll find a way to get rid of the evil devices forever.
Today is the day to feel one minute of horror.
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Currently: Listening to old German love songs. ]
