My mother remembers the announcement on the radio. Everyone was scared, and you're right, we should remember everyone who died that day as well as honor those who survived. But don't lose sight of the big picture; we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki not to end the war [Japan was ready to surrender because we'd already beaten them], but to terrify the rest of the world. We pushed Japan into the war by cutting off its fuel oil supplies and other tactics; it would have been to our advantage to bring Japan around to our thinking and have it as an ally rather than as an enemy in fighting Hitler.
My mother also remembers being in school and the principal calling all the Japanese students to come to the principal's office with their coats and books. She never saw any of them again, people she knew and was friendly with. The Western Washington Fair Grounds in Puyallup, WA was the gathering point for local Japanese families to be taken to internment camps. Many Japanese lost their homes, their livelihoods, everything they owned [and we are talking truck farmers and small business people, not rich people] because of a trumped-up fear. And yes, there were non-Japanese interrned during the war as well; an excellent book on the subject is 'Three Came Home', by a woman who survived with her son [her husband also survived] detailing what they went through.
We need to remember those who fought, but also those who were hurt in the war, not just the wounded, but those dispossessed through no fault of their own.
December 7 and every other commemorative day of war needs to be a day to reflect on the need for people and nations to talk rather than toss rocks at each other.
