After carefully reviewing the responses to my letter of Aug. 13, I am extremely disheartened. Some fellow readers seem to think that I have a callous indifference to the loss of American servicepersons’ lives, and, I feel, have turned this into a personal issue, as if I have somehow offended their sensibilities. 

My father was an officer during World War II in France and Germany, coming home, after three years away, to meet my older brother, a son he had never seen. I myself have been a Registered Nurse for 42 years, caring for our sick and injured, elderly, frail, and underprivileged.

If one had read to my letter’s end, one would see that I was simply suggesting that “we remember this event and learn from it for the future.” Certainly the end of a horrific war is a joyous occurrence, but the Atom bombings that occurred just days before the surrender were unprecedented in their destruction.

The bombings killed between 90,000 and 146,000 people in Hiroshima and 39,000 and 80,000 people in Nagasaki; roughly half occurred on the first day. For months afterward, large numbers of people continued to die from the effects of burns, radiation sickness, and injuries, compounded by illness and malnutrition. Most of the dead were civilians. 

Many V-J Day celebrations fell out of favor over the years due to concerns about their being offensive to Japan, now one of America’s closest allies, and to Japanese Americans, as well as ambivalent feelings toward the nuclear devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 2020 marks the 75th year of the occurrence.

“Founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. The decision to move (or to leave in place) the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock is made every year by the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 13 Nobel laureates.

The Clock has become a universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to catastrophe from nuclear weapons, climate change, and disruptive technologies in other domains. The Doomsday Clock (steadily moving forward over these 72 years) was advanced to 100 seconds to Midnight, on Jan. 23, 2020.“ — Editor of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. I guess we haven’t learned a thing. 

Jean Sharac
Bristol