On August 6th each year, my wife and I celebrate our wedding anniversary with great memories of that day and the wondrous life we have spent together. We look forward with soaring anticipation to the rest of lives together in our mortal life and the eternities beyond.

In sharp contrast, we also remember with great sadness the greatest single act of devastation that mankind has poured out on his fellow travelers in the horrible tragedy of war.

The atomic bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki most likely saved my father’s life. He was on his way to fight in the invasion of Japan, which would most certainly would have been bloody behind belief.  I am grateful that he and his fellow soldiers were spared that experience. But at the same time, my heart mourns for other fathers who did not survive Hiroshima or Nagasaki or the horrific firebombing that preceded these events.

Today I would hope. as we solemnly ponder these photos, that we could unitedly resolve to renounce war and proclaim peace.   

From this vantage point, it seems like just another bomb dropping from the Enola Gay …

 

… but even from far away, the effects from the bomb are ominous.

 

Who could have imagined the devastation?

 

The human effects are too gruesome to post. Just Google “Hiroshima” and look at the images.