On July 26, 2008, I visited Hiroshima. I vaguely remember a cousin driving us down on that morning ten years ago from Hamada, the seaside town where half my family seems to be from. We briefly visited an English-language bookstore before stopping someplace I’ve long forgotten for lunch. If I recall correctly, I thoroughly enjoyed both stops, reveling in the gift of being able to enjoy the company of the family I’d been separated from for so long.
But as they say – or as they should say, in my opinion – Americans don’t visit Hiroshima for lunch.
So, after we finished the meal my cousins drove back home and I went off with my mom’s best friend to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. I knew going to the museum would be an important experience. I didn’t realize at the time, however, that I would look back on the visit as a life-altering experience, an event of such importance to me that exactly a decade later I would note its anniversary.
I don’t remember too many specific details about the museum. I recall a giant guestbook where visitors from all over the world wrote their thoughts about nuclear weapons. I remember looking at the skeletal remains of the A-Bomb Dome. In my mind's eye, I have an image of how beautiful Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is.
My most significant memory, however, is of a moment that took place entirely in my own mind. It came when I was reading the many stories about the civilians who burned, melted, or became sick for the rest of a much-shortened life on that day. It came when I read about all the children in the city who were caught in the blast. It came when I read about the parents who, in one brilliant flash of light, became permanently separated from these children. I read these stories, one after another, until I came to a sudden realization: we still do this.
We still drop bombs regardless of how innocents might get caught up in the explosion. We still find ways to separate families in the name of nation building. We did it then and we still do it. The details are different from where we were several decades ago, of course, but in terms of finding ways to harm powerless people through our haste and recklessness, well, I think America remains very much in that business – at home, abroad, and wherever those two concepts happen to intersect.
