Thoughts of Eleanor Roosevelt and the end of the war with Japan!

I had a number of people email me about my blog on Eleanor Roosevelt this week and on my blog on the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki.  As I rested last night I wondered what Eleanor thought about the end of the war with Japan, a war that ended on August 14, 1945.

Luckily I had been to Val-Kill and Hyde Park as well as the FDR Library, and figured correctly that her many columns must be preserved and available on line….they are!

So here is her released statement on the ending of the War with Japan published on the “day after” ..August 15, 1945 held via her request.

ER……When word was flashed that peace had come to the world again, I found myself filled with very curious sensations. I had no desire to go out and celebrate. I remembered the way the people demonstrated when the last war ended, but I felt this time that the weight of suffering which has engulfed the world during so many years could not so quickly be wiped out. There is a quiet rejoicing that men are no longer bringing death to each other throughout the world. There is great happiness, too, in the knowledge that someday, soon, many of those we love will be at home again to give all they have to the rebuilding of a peaceful world.

One cannot forget, however, the many, many people to whom this day will bring only a keener sense of loss, for, as others come home, their loved ones will not return.

In every community, if we have eyes to see and hearts to feel, we will for many years see evidences of the period of war, which we have been through. There will be men among us who all their lives, both physically and mentally, will carry the marks of war; and there will be women who mourn all the days of their lives. Yet there must be an undercurrent of deep joy in every human heart, and great thankfulness that we have world peace again.

Sadly, we never really have had “world peace” again….and now the wars…. though just as horrible…the impact of them like Iraq and Afghanistan”….are really only felt by those who have lost someone or have someone fighting there.

The wars no longer are in our thoughts daily, and most of us have given little up nor thought much about them except for the jiber-jaber in the news about the tight US budget or the cost in terms of $$$ that our taxes must pay!  Only saddened when a local soldier is lost….

Take a trip to Hyde Park and the FDR Library as well as Val-Kill, and realize that we were lucky to have these elected people in power at that time….

We had the right choice for President of the United States and for Vice President….though we couldn’t choose the right First Lady....We got her anyway she was the best part of the deal!

A Trip to Hyde Park..Springwood

The world's worst day in modern time

Today has a dubious place in the history of not only the United States... but of the world.  On this date in 1945, the last nuclear bombed to be dropped in war was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.  It is estimated that over 60,000 - 80,000 people died immediately and thousands more followed from related injuries and radiation.

Today we are willing to go to war to prevent "suspicious-hostile" countries from getting the bomb...but really...would any country drop a bomb on another knowing that in a few minutes the retaliation will wipe their country off the face of the earth..and them too I might add ..????

We now have many people who believe that dropping the bomb was not necessary..but it took two such bombs to get Japan to surrender!  Though we hate to think about the horror this act caused it might also be good for us to reflect on the outcome over all....there has never been another dropped!

Fat Man, as the bomb was named, started an era of negotiation and fear that has managed to keep nuclear weapons at bay...tho..the terribleness of war has pervaded every continent except our own....

As we look back we must wonder at the decision of Truman's to do this and the fact that he said he never regretted doing it!

***It is interesting to note that the energy released from the tsunami that hit Indonesia in 2004 was 1500 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and the energy released from the   tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 was 600 million times more powerful that that bomb.