Aug 6th was the anniversary of the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. You all know the story. It brought hell to Japan at exactly 8:15am. See here.

Every year Japan honors the victims with a minute of silence. In addition, schools use the anniversary to teach of the event. My oldest boy is in 5th grade, and it seems like that is when they first teach of it. His teacher told the class about the event, then showed a video of a atomic bomb explosion, then showed photos of the victims.

I don't know exactly what photos she showed the class, but evidently they were some of the more gruesome ones. My son was horrified and shocked. He told me their skin was melting off and their body parts were coming off. We've all seen photos of the aftermath. I can imagine some of the ones his teacher may have shown.

I do fully agree with teaching about the event. It's important. It reminds us of the horrors of war and why we should do absolutely everything in our power to avoid ever making war or supporting war. But I'm not sure 5th grade is the right time to show graphic photos of the victims. My son had nightmares and couldn't sleep for a few days afterward.

The inevitable questions came.

Those of you who have been reading me for the past 6 years on Hive and those who have interacted with me probably know my stance on war. I am a pacifist and am against war. I am realistic and acknowledge that a defensive war might be unavoidable in some cases, but beyond those cases, there is never a good reason for war. Never. American Civil War General Sherman famously said "War is hell", and I couldn't agree more. Innocents on both sides suffer in a war. The only winners are the rich bastards who start the damn things and hide away, directing them from afar, convincing by words or force the young and poor to do the fighting for them. Everyone else loses.

As Goering said after he was arrested at the end of the second world war:

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.

With this lens, I look at all wars of the past as tragic and I do not pick winners or losers, good guys or bad guys. Japan did a lot of bad, evil stuff in the Pacific War. Please no comments about Nanjing or Unit 731; I know what they did in China. I assure you, I know in detail, very probably even more detail than you. It was barbaric and inexcusable. That said, sins and war crimes were not limited to the Japanese side. America also did a lot of inexcusable stuff as well. Beyond the war crimes that every side did, there were the inevitable rapes and pillaging that the all the armies did. Yes, the Allies did as well, in Italy, Germany, and Japan, though the history books often leave that part out, at least the Western history books. Armies are armies after all, and those crimes are something of a tradition stretching back to the beginnings of mankind. There was so much raping in Japan that the Japanese government started drafting girls to work as "comfort women" to appease the Americans. War brings out the worst in everyone. War is Hell.

Every army of every country on earth has done bad things in war at some point in their history. I am not here to say this side or that side is at fault. ALL sides are at fault. War is at fault.

That's my position. War is Hell. There are enough sins on every side in a conflict to go around.

I've been using Sherman's "War is hell" quote in this article, but perhaps an even better quote from from Hawkeye in MASH:

War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them—little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander.

So it goes.

So my son comes to me, crying, terrified about what he has seen, and he says "Is America the bad guys? Why did they drop an atomic bomb on Japan?"

Why indeed. How do you answer that question to a ten-year-old? Every reason leads back to something else and there are so many factors in play that even a semester university course isn't long enough to cover it all. A huge number of books have been written on it.

Should I simplify it? If I tell him "Because Japan bombed America first" that will just lead to another why question. Because Japan invaded China and the US stopped the oil flowing into Japan. Why? We could follow those why questions back to 1853 when the US forced Japan to open for trade and Japan embarked on their rapid modernization to avoid being carved up like China. That may make a convenient place to start teaching of the rise of the military in Japan in a university class, but we could follow roots of the out-of-control military back even beyond that. Not to mention why was China being carved up. Why did the US force Japan to open the country? Why was the West colonizing the world? Why was Japan closed in the first place? Why Why Why. Whys are endless if we allow it. History isn't neat, after all, but more resembles a giant spider-web with everything linked to everything else. As we get older we learn that the truth is complicated and we content ourselves at one why at a time, but kids can keep going forever if you let them. (And my son has many times...)

Should I just fall back on blind nationalism for either side? "Yes, America was evil for dropping the bomb." or "Japan was doing very bad things so America had to stop them regardless of the cost." Beyond the fact that both of these extreme answers would probably lead to more whys as above, I don't believe in either one and I can't tell my son what I don't believe in.

Of course I can't give a detailed answer, because I think that would fly over his head. He's only ten, after all.

I ended up telling him that dropping the bomb was bad because it killed many many many innocent people, but that doesn't mean America was the bad guys. This is the kind of thing that happens in war and that is why we should never glorify it and never support it. War encourages even good people to act in bad ways. It doesn't matter if America was right or wrong, nor does it matter if Japan was right or wrong. Innocent people died as a result. Innocent people always die as a result of war. You saw the photos in your class. War is always wrong.

He seemed to understand that answer. He asked a few more things about how an atomic bomb works and I tried to answer as best I could. But then he moved on and we talked about something else. The nightmares gradually faded and he moved on. I'm sure in the years to come they will teach more and more of. Nagasaki. The firebombing of Tokyo. I look forward to talking about these things with him, but I do hope he isn't so affected next time. Waking up in the middle of the night to a kid suddenly screaming and crying is not a fun experience...

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku.