August 6th, 1945.
I grew from birth to the age of ten in the “Atomic City,” Oak Ridge, Tennessee. I even had a wooden carved bomb that read “Dan Sanders Atomic Baby.” Fighter jets and guard houses were my normal views and surroundings. My dad worked for the Manhattan Project that helped create the atomic bomb, and I know he had reservations—hell, more than reservations. I’m sure he had nightmares about how it was used. He often said the first bomb should have been dropped on Mount Fuji as a warning shot, and that killing civilians—children—was an act of revenge, not war, and I agree with him.
The death toll on August 6, 1945 — the day Hiroshima was bombed — is estimated at 70,000 to 80,000 people killed immediately. By the end of 1945, about 140,000 people had died in Hiroshima, including those who suffered a long, agonizing death from radiation poisoning, which I have seen time‑lapse video of, and it is truly horrifying.
Sometimes at night when I think about this—and it’s not always on the anniversary, for it has haunted me for as long as I’ve been alive—I picture some kids in an open field, sunny green grass, blue sky, playing soccer laughing then suddenly turned to dust.
I met a survivor of that bombing many years ago, and he talked about how his life was spared because his house was a few miles from the hypocenter, and he was hunched behind a brick wall working in his garden, talking to his wife standing on the porch. After the blast wave passed over, he looked for his wife on the porch, and all that was left was a shadow left on the wall.
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