If we lost WWII, the leaders of the US would be on trial for war crimes on the use of the two bombs; then you read books about Okinawa like this and in hearing stories like my grandfather's and you realize why we did it. Okinawa was a meat grinder. Forward movement on the island was at one point measured in casualties per FOOT forward. The Japanese dug in and fought like hell. By the time the battle was "over" in June of 1945 over 77,000 Japanese soldiers and roughly 100,000 civilians were dead. The battle claimed roughly 2/3 of every Japanese man woman and child on the island. Six weeks later the twin atomic bombings ended the war.

I'm sort of glad that the bombs were used. They are a stain on my country's honor and history that will never wash away and we as Americans will always have that stigma of "First nation to use nuclear weapons in war" but the leaders of the time looked at Okinawa and came up with TEN MILLION Japanese military casualties, FIVE MILLION US casualties, and many millions more injured in a five year war to conquer Japan. We now know that the Army of Japan was also working on nuclear weapons. And US leadership knew of the Japanese war crimes in China and Korea by this time. We also know that the first two targets were selected due to their high population and the shock and awe (some would say terror) value of the destruction.

This is why I love history. Everything is connected, everything is a cause of something else. After the use of the weapons in 1945, no nukes have been used in War. With the use of these two small by today's standards weapons the horror of what these bombs do was laid out for everyone to see first hand. I'd rather have our first nuclear attack be Nagasaki and Hiroshima than a 50-100 weapon exchange on Moscow, Washington, Paris and Berlin for example. I'm convinced that if nukes were not used to end WWII then by the end of the 50's a full out nuclear exchange would have taken place. So, here is the question we have to ask:

The use of nukes to end WWII was bad, but how many lives did those bombings save? Was the cost of an additional 3-5 years of WWII worth the moral cost of using nukes in War? Is the current 70 year post WWII peace, at least in part, due to the reality of nuclear war being shown to the world in 1945?

Life is never black and white, but shades of grey. It is in the examination of events like this that we hone our own personal moral compass and strive to walk more in the light than in the dark.