When December 7th rolls around each year, I think of the two words that seem to me to be quite appropriate:

Hiroshima
Nagasaki
__________________
Steve Turner

“Just try to make the world a better place for your having been here” -- Jimmy Doolittle, World War II Medal Of Honor winner

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I saw a program tonight which I have seen once before and I thought I would comment on it. On the renouned "Dish TV" research channel Yona, a Hiroshima survivor talked about the atomic blast and radiation poisoning.

"The first thing you see is the bright white light". If you are lucky you will duct to the ground shrouding your body from the immense heat covering your face and eyes. If you don't and react to slowly you will no longer have eyes on your face. They will be gone. It is not a pretty site to see loss of eyes from the face. She will never forget.

If you are lucky you might be wearing white clothing. Radiation is reflected and black absorbs all the radiation and you will be burned, most likely alive. If you can run you might be able to escape from the destruction traveling at you, but she said those with no eyes could not run.

In this instance the survivor was blown away and was later found underneath, I assume a collapsed building. To this day some parents still don't know where their children are. I guess they are still hoping that they will see them again. I guess they just can bare the fact that they were never found.

It took Yona 15 years to even talk about the blast and that she survived when so many other children had died. You see on that particular day she was sent home, 10,000 kilometers from the epicenter. Her stories were from the mothers of the children who suffered the blast. The mother wrote down their stories I guess in remembrance of the event. You see the children were gathered to make bullets to support the war effort. Most of these children knew nothing but war. Since 1930 they were in the "15 Year War" and 15 years later on Aug 7th, 1945 was another day in the factory making the weapons that would be used to kill others. For 15 years these children only knew war, that was their life. I doubt they would be going to the races on a saturday night, if they had the day off. I assume they would probably just go to the lake, watch the water and dream how peaceful it was and quiet.

Amazingly those who survived appeared not scarred from the blast. They looked normal but several months later just died. She assumed the radiation had killed them, but it was the internal death and not wounds from outside the body. These people who had died had no visible wounds from without. Those who survived had diarrhea and urniated blood and later had heart problems and breathing problems.
Yona assume it was from the radiation poisoning.

Yona jobs at the age of 15 was to take all the dead bodies in a field and burn them. Her job was to insure they were properly incinerated. It was a job she took very seriously. I wonder if I could take litterally hundreds of bodies into a field and make sure they were properly incinerated. I assume that was not a pleasant job at the age of 15 years old. I think I would rather be making bullets.

At age 31 Yona realized she had a responsiblity to educate those who had not seen war or survived a nuclear blast. It was one of the last wills and testaments of a mother before she died. So, I assume Yona has for the last 40 years went on a mission around the world to try to educate others that nuclear bombs should be eliminated and that war should be stopped. Maybe then children would not have to make bullets, and survive a nuclear blast. She was speaking in Santa Barbara, Ca in Japanese with an English translator. I can't but help think she was educating me and was hoping I would spread the word.

Sincerely,

Larry Otani and hope 2011 is a great year for racing. God Bless you all.