WagesofDestructionCJackson

Christopher Jackson

Wages of Destruction

Who can name a war greater or more well known that World War II. Known by some in America as the last great patriotic war. While also being the last total war ever to be fought between America and any other nation. Though not the last war ever fought or the war to end all others, this conflict changed the balance of power forever. When the war ended, the way wars were fought ever since were never the same. All it took was a bomb and the awesome destructive power it held. This power was used on a place called Hiroshima and it ended a what should have been a longer conflict.

When reading J Dower’s article, “A Doctor’s Diary of Hiroshima, Fifty Years Later, from Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering%2” a reader is introduced to a Hiroshima survivor. This survivor being someone by the name of Dr. Michihiko Hachiya. Dr. Hachiya goes over the traumatic after math of the bombing of Hiroshima. The article points out that Americans typically do not linger long on this event. It is usually kept simple with mentions of the atomic bomb being dropped and the moves on to Japan’s surrender.  Though, “commentary about the human consequences of the bombs on the largely civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki generally is shunned” for the sake of patriotic narratives (Dower, “A Doctor’s Diary of Hiroshima, Fifty Years Later, from Ways of Forgetting, Ways of Remembering%2” p. 163).

 The main argument or point attempting to be made is that conflict has consequences. Though war can be given a polished narrative of good versus evil. Still there is still the issue of displacement, property damage and mental scaring to consider. All of which is covered in Dower’s article and well as another by D. Serlin. Serlin’s article, “Reconstructing the Hiroshima Maidens, in Replaceable You- Engineering the Body in Postwar America%2” covers this as well. Though there is also some focus on reconstruction in a postwar nation.