Hiroshima was first, on August 6th, 1945 . . . Nagasaki, second, on August 9th, 1945.

We love firsts, don’t we. Thus, Hiroshima gets tons more media space this time of year than . . . what was it? . . . oh yeah, Nagasaki.

The argument is often made, especially from the American side, that given the great fervor of the Japanese (both the military and the general population) and their alleged intention to defend the mainland to the very last person (man and woman), bringing the war to a quick conclusion by dropping an atomic bomb was justified. That is (the argument goes), by dropping the bombs (two, it was), death and suffering of an even larger magnitude than what the bombs brought was avoided.

That’s an argument. Take the side you like.

But what are we to think about Nagasaki? Even if you side with the “necessity” argument, how many exhibitions of terrifying weapons of mass destruction were necessary? One wasn’t enough?

Recently, I saw a video posted of fighters, seven or eight, scrambling out of tunnels and into Israeli territory, only to be blown away by what looked to be a pretty hefty bomb. (For them, it didn’t seem to matter that it wasn’t nuclear.) There were viewer comments of all sorts, from all points-of-view, but every time I read one, all I could think was this is a point-of-view, a perspective, an opinon, an argument, an interpretion. The only indisputable, no-other-way-of-looking-at-it thing to be said, I thought, was, some people were blown to smithereens.

People who are entrenched on one side or the other often express with a degree of confidence the  tough steps that must be taken to end the crisis. Naturally, those steps depend on which side they’re on. On the other hand–at least in my experience–those who sympathize with both sides, at least to some extent, seem a bit more at a loss.

So what to do?

All I know to think is that it surely begins with the children. Maybe you could take all the children in Israel and Gaza and switch them all around–and then maybe people would be a little less willing to launch missiles into communities in which their own children might be living. Yes, yes, absolutely absurd. Could never be done. Well then, how about at least sending the children to live with a family across the border for a year or so, so that they’d at least know whose death their leaders’ policies were bringing about? Again, absurd? Sorry, sorry, sorry. Could you consider this then: printing this simple message on the back of every textbook used in every classroom (social sciences, math, chemistry, whatever) all over the world: PEOPLE LIVING EVERYWHERE ARE HUMAN BEINGS AND THUS DESERVE TO LIVE IN PEACE AND WITH DIGNITY. WE CAN’T KILL ANY OF THEM, EVEN IF THEY SOMETIMES DO THINGS WE DON’T LIKE. DON’T EVER FORGET THIS. AND DON’T LISTEN TO ANYONE WHO TRIES TO TELL YOU DIFFERENT.

If you think my words sound weak and trite, you could go for a message that sounds a little more authorative, like . . . DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU. Wait, is that how it went? Did Jesus add an UNLESS YOUR AND THEIR PARENTS DON’T LIKE EACH OTHER? No, I don’t believe he did. Did Jesus want us to read that stipulation into his words? Wow, now we’re back in the realm of opinion and interpretation. You can interpret what he said however you like. (Me, I don’t see much trickery or irony in Jesus’s words and tend to take his statement at face value.)

But it does begin with the children, don’t you think? Because if you go around fighting, you’ll eventually have to convince them to do the killing . . . the killing, you know, of people, otherwise known as human beings.

Me, I think that killing other human beings is an unnatural act. Maybe you do, too, in general, at least.

Some children, many I’d like to think, will choose never to kill, not even in a time of war. A few, sadly, might be convinced to kill rather easily.  And then there will be those who might kill during war if they feel there’s a compelling reason. And historically, the reason that seems to be the most compelling is this: the enemy’s culture is barbaric, the greater portion of its population savage and lunatic, and its whole country nothing but a roiling, boiling pot of evil.

If you need to ask a great many children to kill when they grow up, your task will be made much easier if you can deceive them while they’re still young, while they’re impressionable and gullible and wanting to trust.

Deceiving the children. I don’t like that. Not at all.

Here at Persimmon Dreams, we’re particularly fond of a very, very short chapter from a novel we’ve published. A young boy, Kenta Ishiguro, is trying to understand what it must have been like to have been a part of World War II, and he is realizing what education must have been like when his grandfather was young–what Americans must have learned about the Japanese, and what Japanese must have learned about Americans. We re-print the chapter, in its entirety, below.

Sorry, no photographs this time. Come back again if you’d like to see some.

*     *     *

THE ONLY THING TO DO

Yes, it was going to be brutal. And the ones who’d have to finish the brutal task, you’d have to get them ready. So you’d have no choice: you’d have to deceive them.

Yes, you’d have to deceive the children. It was the only thing to do.

In science class, some little boys were so wimpy they cried when asked to stick a knife in a dead frog’s chest. How were you going to get them to stick a bayonet in a live human being?

Human beings. How much more convenient war would be if there were none on the other side!

So you could imagine it.

You could imagine, in New York City, a mother handing a child a sign to carry: Down with the Japs–THE RATS!

You could imagine an elementary school teacher announcing a great victory, marveling at the mountain the dead bodies had become, displaying his astonishment at how foolish such a cowering, yappy species could be. Chinks, chinks, chinks, chinks! he bellows. Too stupid to know what they are!

You could imagine an officer berating a young soldier. The young soldier, still a child, trembles. The tip of his bayonet shakes. The officer growls–They are not human beings!