Nuclear Disarmament

Our trip to Japan took a somber turn with a visit to Hiroshima. Being a lover of history, I wanted to see the city where the first atomic bomb hit and to hear from the people affected by it. Little did I know the emotion I was about to experience.

Growing up in school, three things about Japan in World War II were ingrained in me: (1) they believed that they were a master race during the War; (2) they attacked us first at Pearl Harbor so we became involved in the war; (3) they refused to surrender, so dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary to stop them. We never learned about how the people were affected. We never learned about the long-lasting effects of the nuclear bomb on the people and their descendants. We never heard the stories from the survivors. We never heard about how Hiroshima and Nagasaki rebuilt themselves. We never learned about the Japanese during World War II as people.

We started our day visiting the atomic dome, where the bomb exploded hundreds of meters above. We walked around the Peace Park until we made our way to the museum. The park contained an overwhelming sadness and agony that hung in the air while the rain gently drizzled on our umbrellas in the gray of the morning. My heart silently mourned.

The museum was what made my heart break until I could no longer contain the emotion and allowed it to escape through my eyes. It was the first time I had ever read excerpts from diaries of children, seen burnt bodies of victims, read about the thousands of families devastated by death and the inferno that the United States unleashed. I read about the junior high school students who were pulled out of school in order to work in the factories to help with the war effort, and how those same children died from the bombing.

I saw the tricycle of a toddler who was outside his home riding it when the bomb dropped. He loved his tricycle so much that his family decided to bury him with it. The family later donated the tricycle to the museum decades later. Seeing the tricycle and knowing that a tiny life was extinguished on it shook my core. I saw the burnt clothes of other children who were in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped. I read about family members rushing to Hiroshima in frantic search for their loved ones and how they never found them. To this day, not every victim could be identified. A daughter searched for days for her father; she found his bike and waited for him to come get his bike, but he never appeared. A mother was seen screaming her dead baby's name, begging him to open his eyes.

Dozens of stories were told there, each one a tragedy that ripped my heart into a new piece. The Japanese during World War II I read about in history books were no longer "the bad guys." For the first time, I saw the people of Hiroshima for what they were - people. They were children, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, sons, and daughters. It was at that moment that the sadness I felt overwhelmed me. I cried for the victims.

And in that moment, I wondered what the course of history would have been had we not dropped the atomic bomb. Would the Soviet Union have exerted its influence? Would the Japanese had surrendered anyway? Did we need to do that? Wasn't there another way? I didn't have the answers. I think the only being who knows those answers is God.

The messages of the survivors all had one clear message - nuclear disarmament. It was obvious why - the effects of nuclear warfare are devastating and endure for generations. It took decades for the city to rebuild itself, and that was with generous foreign aid from other countries. Most survivors don't want to talk about the bombing. For a long time, it was forbidden to mention the bombing.

I couldn't help but think of what the world would be like if we removed nations. A world without borders, without nationalism, and instead became one united people, the people of the globe called Earth. Each one of us is human, so why do we really need to separate ourselves? I dismissed the idea, knowing that there was too much greed and racism in the world for that idea to ever materialize. I then wondered if we could actually become a world without nuclear weapons. I dismissed this idea, too, because there are too many irresponsible leaders in the world such as Trump, Putin, and Kim Jong Un. They have no idea the level of devastation that nuclear weapons wield and if they ever did make such a nuclear attack, that attack could easily be reciprocated on their own people. I shuddered at the thought. I prayed that I would die before ever witnessing another Hiroshima.

President Barack Obama visited the Peace Park and the museum. He wrote a note that is on display at the museum. I pray that his note becomes reality in my lifetime:
"We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons."