Today is the 69th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I would encourage anyone to read up on some hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor) literature and educate themselves on the hell we created.

Here's a survivors article: http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com%2F2014%2F08%2F05%2Fthis-is-what-i-saw-hiroshima-survivor-recounts-hell-on-earth-sixty-nine-years-later&pubdate=2014-08-06

Studio Ghibli released a movie on the subject called Grave of the Fireflies. Tamiki Hara and Yoko Ota are a couple hibakusha authors.

It hasn't been 3 months since you posted this so it's not considered a dead topic yet. I think there's a rule against posting on a forum that's been inactive for 3 months.

I just wanted to say that I think it's very very sad that not ANY one took the time to respond to your post and I want to thank you for posting about this. What the US did when "we" decided to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (three days later) is unspeakable, and that's an understatement. I am often ashamed that I'm a citizen of this country and I can only say that (in terms of these horrific events) I'm glad that I wasn't alive at that time, though I WAS born not long after, in 1955.

What is another atrocity is that we were NEVER told about this when I was in grade school in the 60's. They NEVER told us about anything that the US did, not about what happened in Germany with the annihilation of the Jews during the holocaust and they certainly didn't educate us about what the invaders of THIS country did to the Native Americans.

I have no children, sadly, so I don't know what children learn in school these days (or in the 80's and onward since I graduated HS in 1973) but I hope that children and teens are finally learning about these things. All we ever learned about were what other countries did to the US during wars, etc...

So, your topic is very appreciated by someone who has developed a love of history and of learning the truth in my middle age. I remember being shocked when I was in my 20's and I first heard of death camps and I don't know HOW old I was when I learned about the bombings in Japan.

I remember in the early 90's when they started having ceremonies to honor the ppl of those cities and they called it a Peace Day (or something like that). I was living in Milwaukee WI at the time and I attended a day long event that was very special on August 6th. We made boats out of Styrofoam and paper, which had candles in them, so they were floating lanterns and then in the evening we put them into the river. It was very spiritual and special.

Thank you, again, for posting about this.