Remembering the bomb’s victims
by Kathryn
Urick
Letter to the Editor,
published in the Ames Tribune August 7,
1986
HIROSHIMA/ NAGASAKI
– LET US NOT FORGET! Many Americans will
remember the horrors of that day, August
9, ’45. On this 41st
anniversary let us review a few facts – the name of the plane carrying “Big
Boy,” was “Enola Gay, “destroying the city of Hiroshima,
killing hundreds of men, women, and children.
Three days later, the plan “Bocks Car,” dropped “Little Boy’ on the city
of Nagasaki, causing more death and
devastation.
Language plays a subtle role doesn’t it? Nuclear weapons are given appealing names and
we are lulled into thinking of nuclear war as being an acceptable risk.
Historical accounts tell us that Japan
had put out peace feelers – deliberately ignored by the U.S. And, all the markings for a third bomb were
at hand. Someone surely would have
thought of “savagery” as an appropriate name for this third bomb.
The term “terrorism” is used when a bomb is sent through the
mail or hostages are held for ransom.
Yet, when governments kill millions of people with nuclear weapons, it
is described as “strategy”.
Thousands of Japanese will be memorializing their dead on
August 9 by the floating – candle ceremony known as the “O-BON”. Next year on August 9, ’87, if we don’t forget, the people of Ames
could join in such a ceremony. Our own Lake
Laverne would be the perfect
site. Unless, of
course, a 1-ton megaton bomb is dropped on St. Cecilia School. In which case, the Memorial Union will topple
over into Lake Laverne,
spoiling its glorious beauty for much of anything forever and ever. The Ground Zero crew discovered this when
they attempted to tell Ames people
what would happen to the city in case of such a hit. That was in April, ’82.
But it’s not too late for each of us to have our own little
private “O-BON”. The bathtub is OK – a
bowl of water – an outdoor swimming pool, remembering during our ceremony to
offer an additional prayer for “The Boy with the Raw Back” whose story was featured
in the August, 1986 issue of the The Progressive
magazine. It tells the story of Sumiteru Taniguchi, who was photographed as a 14-year-odl
victim of the bombing of Nagasaki. Those photos were widely distributed in
1975. Taniguchi, whose back was severely
burned by the wind storm following the bomb drop, remained hospitalized on his
stomach for 21 months. H recovered, and
today is active in the campaign for multilateral disarmament.
Kathryn Urick
Ames