Do you know what this is?

[2strokebloke]

I won't write much about it. I saw it going through old issues of National Geographics from the 1960s, and I was reminded. This structure, the pictures of it, always bring chills for me. If there were anything that could rival the concentration camps for disregaurd of human life, this is it. In a second, everyone within this building was dead. In all, I've heard an estimated 30,000 died that day, and by the end of the year, between 80,000 and 120,000 were dead. Thoughts, anybody?

[TexasF355F1]

While I'm not sure what building it is, the building looks oddly familiar.

[DGB454]

The atomic bomb building or dome or something like that.

If that's right or close to right I read somewhere that approx. 75,000 died that day and about the same amount were injured. If it's not right it's still a terrible thing.

[2strokebloke]

It was Hiroshima's Industry Exhibition Complex, known today simply as the "Atomic Dome" It was one of the few buildings at the cities center that survived the explosion. In fact, it was almost directly below the blast.
For years it stood after the bomb, in 1966 the city decided to preserve the site. It's a reminder of why nuclear weapons should never be used again.

[TexasF355F1]

That's what I was thinking it might be. Yea everytime I see a picture or watch something on tv about the atomic bomb I get chills. It almost takes my breathe way(in a bad way).

[YogsVR4]

I recognized the building. It reminds me that my uncles body is still in the Arizona.

[2strokebloke]

I too had relatives die in the war, they were in the army, and in the navy. They were not civillians. They were not women and children.
I do not know how exactly they died. I can be pretty sure though, that they did not die the painful, drawn out death of radiation poisoning, they were not carbonized by intense heat, their children did not die from cancer or luekemia. I do know that.
And I do know (in the case of my U.S. family) that when they were done, they actually had something to come back to.

[DGB454]

I am guessing you are leading up to America is evil or something like that right?

[2strokebloke]

I am leading up to no such thing at all! It doesn't matter who dropped the bombs. Because Hitler was German, I do not blame Germany. Because the bombs came from America, I do not blame all America for it. All that matters is that it never happens again. It was easily, the darkest, and most horrific event in human history.

[DGB454]

Ok.....Sorry about that. I was just going on a hunch.
Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong.

[Joseph1082]

Well, If we didn't drop the Bomb, we would have to have invaded... projections estimated a million american casualties, and we all know it would've been more.
So... would you have dropped the bomb??

[deadlight]

Yeah, but would they have been civilian casualties? I'm sorry, but it probably would've been better to invade than to drop two massive nuclear bombs on two cities. I don't know what I would've done honestly, so I can't answer you that, but I can say I don't think nuclear warfare is the best answer in any situation.

[l33tc4k30fd00m]

Originally Posted by Joseph1082

So... would you have dropped the bomb??

Yup.

Would I pretend for one second that what I had just done was the right thing to do? That all those innocent men, women and children that I had just MURDERED were a small price to pay?

Nope.

Oh and a million American war dead? That all? *points to the Eastern front*

[DGB454]

I'm not sure that at the time we dropped the bombs we fully understood the destruction it was going to cause. I'm sure we knew it was going to be big but did we know it was going to be that big? Notice no one has done anything like that since then. Hopefully we all have learned from it.

There would have surely been massive civillian casualties if we would have invaded. There is always civilian casualities in war. Think about all the civilian casualities that happened before we dropped the bomb.

[Joseph1082]

I meant if we invaded Japan, Truman made a choice, a million or more sons of America, or a hundred thousand or so of our enemy's civilians.