August 6 was the 63rd anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima in 1945. I was only six months old at the time, a happy baby in a very good home safely cared for in northern Kentucky. My older contemporaries, young schoolchildren in Japan, were being incinerated by the U.S. government’s newly tested atomic bomb. About 100,000 Japanese died in Hiroshima and tens of thousands more slowly died from radiation poisoning. Three days later a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki killing about 50,000 more civilians.

Two horrific bombs dropped to “end” a war? Japan was ready to surrender, Russia was ready to join the fray, but the U.S. wanted to be the victor in Japan with a spot for a military base which it has. History seems to keep repeating these imperialistic atrocities.

Of course I never heard about Hiroshima in school studies of World War II until I was a senior in college and a teacher with a sensitized conscience mentioned John Hersey’s book “Hiroshima” and showed us old news clips of the surviving victims. I was horrified and very ashamed to be an American.

Today I want to apologize to those who suffered so terribly. Nothing justifies this.

And I would hope that soon the warmongering will cease; the nuclear, cluster and depleted uranium bombs will disappear; and sane negotiations will be the order of the day.

Margie Wagner Deschene

Grand Falls