THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 10, 1995 TAG: 9508100006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 31 lines
I have been watching and reading about the ceremonies of the 50th anniversary of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. I feel sympathy for the innocent civilians who suffered because their leaders were too arrogant to believe the warnings that the United States government sent them prior to dropping the bomb. Not only did they ignore the warnings; they refused to admit defeat and had to be bombed a second time.
I have seen the protests against this horrible act, but as I prepare to go to the 50th reunion of the Lost Battalion in Wichita, Texas, of which my father-in-law was a member and subsequently in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, I ask: Where is sympathy for the thousands of men who lost their lives or were tortured by the Japanese for more than three years? These men were forced to build railroads for the Japanese. They were starved, beaten and treated in the most inhumane ways possible.
I encourage the atomic-bomb-drop protesters to research the reasons that the United States was forced to resort to this horrible act of killing innocent civilians.
RHONDA GLAZNER
Chesapeake, Aug. 6, 1995 by CNB