THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407060006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
I was saddened but not shocked that at least one of your readers missed the whole point of the D-Day remembrance held in honor of the sacrifices of all of those brave people who participated. D-Day symbolized the ultimate gift one man can give to another - his life in exchange for others' freedom.
No one can detest the horrors of war more than those who answered the cries of their fellow humans who were enslaved. Until you have placed the principles of liberty and freedom above your own personal safety, you have only a sterile and remote concept of what they routinely faced. But the citizen soldiers and sailors who freed the world from the grasp of tyrannies as brutal as any known in man's recorded history could never be accused of looking back at that time as a ``fun'' period.
As for any remembrance of the bombing of Hiroshima, the record shows that the use of nuclear weapons at that time was a sound and timely decision. As late as July 1945, the Japanese still held vast military resources at the ready to repel any invasion. Troop strength numbered in the millions, and the imperial high command had stashed away thousands of aircraft of all kinds to launch a final kamikaze attack upon any invaders. A review of the last year of the war in the Pacific reveals the effectiveness and determination of the Japanese fighting forces. One needs only visit the Punchbowl National Cemetery in Hawaii and walk among the row upon row of white crosses to attest to the ferocity of the Japanese military.
After the atrocities performed by the Japanese war machine from 1931 on, including the brutal rape of Nanking, could there even be a remote thought of hoping that they would just go home and quietly fade away?
Although the use of the atomic bomb instead of another bloody D-Day invasion on sacred Japanese soil has been questioned and debated many thousands of times since the decision was made, there is one unmistakable fact that can't be debated or denied: Because the bomb was dropped, the war ended. And since the war ended, men like my father and many of my uncles could come home alive.
ROBERT W. MacPHERSON
Virginia Beach, June 19, 1994 by CNB