Hiroshima, 64 yrs. -

"August 6th, (2009) marks 64 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan by the United States at the end of World War II. Targeted for military reasons and for its terrain (flat for easier assessment of the aftermath), Hiroshima was home to approximately 250,000 people at the time of the bombing.

The U.S. B-29 Superfortress bomber "Enola Gay" took off from Tinian Island very early on the morning of August 6th, carrying a single 4,000 kg (8,900 lb) uranium bomb codenamed "Little Boy". At 8:15 am, Little Boy was dropped from 9,400 m (31,000 ft) above the city, freefalling for 57 seconds while a complicated series of fuse triggers looked for a target height of 600 m (2,000 ft) above the ground. At the moment of detonation, a small explosive initiated a super-critical mass in 64 kg (141 lbs) of uranium. Of that 64 kg, only .7 kg (1.5 lbs) underwent fission, and of that mass, only 600 milligrams was converted into energy - an explosive energy that seared everything within a few miles, flattened the city below with a massive shockwave, set off a raging firestorm and bathed every living thing in deadly radiation.

Nearly 70,000 people are believed to have been killed immediately, with possibly another 70,000 survivors dying of injuries and radiation exposure by 1950. Today, Hiroshima houses a Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum near ground zero, promoting a hope to end the existence of all nuclear weapons." (The Boston Globe - the Big Picture)

- pictures there are excellent and astonishing, but some are not for children's eyes. 14 and over, or at your discretion.

Although it helped to end WW2, as a Christian, and even as an American, with much pride, yet, as a human, I must say - the destruction of dropping the atomic bomb against people just like us - hurts my heart. Perhaps necessary in many ways, yet utterly, completely, horrific and terrifying. I keep thinking "What if it had been us instead?", and now I know how they came to hate us for it.

It makes me truly sad ... that we did it.

In the end, it only makes me truly sad.


She stood for freedom then.

She stands for freedom now.

As long as America lives in the hearts of her people, the people I know won't ever let that change.

Hoping in Christ yet,
~ Jean Marie