60th Anniversary of the Atomic Bomb

An anonymous reader writes "On July 16, 1945, the world's first nuclear bomb exploded at Trinity Site, New Mexico, marking the beginning of the Nuclear Age. Manhattan Project veteran Herb Lehr has no regrets: 'In a lot of respects I felt as if I had done something worthwhile. I am in no way ashamed of what I had done in any way, shape, matter or form. I did what I was told to do. I did it to the best of my ability.' Lehr will return to Trinity Site for the first time since the explosion. He said, 'I'm just interested in going and seeing it and maybe getting some memories back. Los Alamos was a whole interesting experience. It was something unique. I worked very hard down there.'"

Comments

wrong and disgusting but interesting

[Knome_fan]

That people like the parent get modded up in every discussion about the atomic bombs is on the one hand disgusting as he is simply repeating untruth, that have been shown to be untruth again and again, like the alledegedly millions of lives that were saved (funny btw. that the number grow over the decades. While Stimpson spoke of half a million and a few years later in his autobiography Truman spoke of a million, George Bush Sr. spoke of 2 million decades later and now we finally have arrived at 10-20 millions in the new century).

On the other hand it's incredibly intersting to watch what a sore point the fact that the US used the bombs seems to be for many Americans that they feel the need to mod people up who make those wrong and outragous claims. (For example, someone modded insightful in this discussion claimed it had potentially saved a billion lives...)

I think that only shows that Americans, or a large part of the American populace, are unable to look at their country's history in anything but black or white. Even suggesting that the stories of what led up to the atomic bombs being used might have been a little more complicated than the dominant but false narrative assumes will inevitably leed to angry reactions.

The notion that America no matter what happened always were and are the good guys has to be defended no matter what and the thought that some action by the US might have been wrong, or at least debateable or in a morally grey area has to be shouted down immidiately.

Certainly disgusting but also really, really fascinating to watch.