Pondering History

     Happy Tuesday! Today in history we had a discussion regarding President Truman's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945. I'm certainly no expert on the matter and there's probably a lot more that I should know about it, but for some reason I've become fascinated with the subject. Think about how hard it must have been for Truman to make that decision, knowing that people were going to hate you for it no matter what you chose! I seriously have so much respect for that man, even though I wish the bombs hadn't been necessary. I have come to the conclusion that as President of the United States, your first priority is to protect American lives, and Truman had to choose either ending Japanese lives or risking American lives, and in the end it saved more lives than it took. I am absolutely, positively, 100% always against war and violence, but in those circumstances, when we had already been in a second world war for three years, and American soldiers were dying, the war needed to end as quickly as possible.
     I think this situation is very interesting and complex, and to some degree can even apply to decisions we make in our own lives. We know now about radiation-related illnesses that have affected the Japanese, but at the time we knew nothing about it. Maybe they should have done more research? But would that have changed Truman's mind? What if we dropped the bomb from 20,000 feet instead of 2,000 feet? What if we only dropped a bomb on Hiroshima, surely a second one in Nagasaki wasn't necessary? But then that might have made Japan think that we only had one bomb, with two bombs it was a message to them that we could have more and that we weren't afraid to use them. What if we weren't trying to prove a point to the Soviet Union? What if we knew that Japan was planning on surrendering? The list of 'what ifs' goes on and on. My point is that we can't look at history from what we know now; we have to imagine ourselves in that time period, knowing only what they knew at that time.
     Sorry for this whole spiel about American history, but I find it interesting that we really can relate this subject to our lives, like when you have to make a tough decision and you sometimes have to commit a necessary evil, and you have to think about whether the ends justify the means. Just something to think about!

Carpe Diem,
Brooke