Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

Thank you for your column about the dropping of the ‘A-bombs’ on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I was 9 when the ‘bomb’ was dropped.  It terrified me.  When I grew up I studied history and also WWII. 

The loss of American lives to invade and take Japan was predicted to be tremendous.  We were war weary and we had originally been attacked by Japan — not vice versa.   I suggest anyone who thinks the Japanese military would have been kind to us if they had won needs to read the true account of “The Rape of Nanking”.   It is a very difficult read, especially if you look at the photographs.  Or read the accounts of our men who were imprisoned by the Japanese army during the war.  Read about the Comfort Women of Korea — women stolen, used and abused by the Japanese army.   War is not a game of Monopoly, but it also is not something I like at all.  I hate it and wish we would never have to fight a war again but none of humanity is perfect, if you read the paper or listen to the news or go online, it is painfully obvious.  The dropping of the bomb saved numerous lives — American lives.  Would those who protest that event be willing to sacrifice themselves and everyone they love to change history?  Would they really?  Would those they would sacrifice agree? Would that change anything at all?   War is not a game it is too true — ask those who have fought in one or the refugees.  It is also true that modern warfare, for the first time in history, kills more civilians than combatants — you would think that would end it — right?  It has not.  When the good are weak the violent will attack.

 This letter is not meant to be an attack on the Japanese people but on the government that attacked us in 1941.  I grew up in Richmond, CA where there were many Japanese living, mostly farming, when the war began.  I knew them as people just like my family — first and second generation Scandinavians — was.  They were mostly very good people and hard-working.

 Again, thank you for your very informative article,



Marie Evans

Manteca