When I first went to Hiroshima in 1967, the shadow on the steps was still there. It was an almost perfect impression of a human being at ease: legs splayed, back bent, one hand by her side as she sat waiting for a bank to open. At a quarter past eight on the morning of August 6, 1945, she and her silhouette were burned into the granite. I stared at the shadow for an hour or more, then walked down to the river and met a man called Yukio, whose chest was still etched with the pattern of the shirt he was wearing when the atomic bomb was dropped.
Read on if you've got the guts . . .
Addendum Thursday, August 7, 2008: South Korea Commission Probes Civilian Massacres by US in Korean War
Is this our legacy? The butchery of innocent women and children?
--Joe
I had known that there was a cover up of radiation poisoning but I had not realized the extent of that cover up!
ReplyDeleteMy father was a combat veteran and sent home to my mom the Army weekly called "Yank." There were several boxes of these newspapers stored away in the freezer room and when I got old enough to read and understand, I would spend hours sequestered away reading about the War and its aftermath. What I read has stayed with me all my life. History has spoken and they reported the truth to the American soldier. I have always known about the cover-up.
ReplyDeleteThe Truth, it seems, can never be truly covered up or hidden. The Scripture says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."