Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, died yesterday at the ripe old age of 92.
Most interesting about his obit was its repetition that he had no regrets about dropping the bomb.
Throughout his life, Tibbets seemed more troubled by other people's objections to the bomb than by him having led the crew that killed tens of thousands of Japanese in a single stroke. The attack marked the beginning of the end of World War II.
Tibbets grew tired of criticism for delivering the first nuclear weapon used in wartime, telling family and friends that he wanted no funeral service or headstone because he feared a burial site would only give detractors a place to protest.
And he insisted he slept just fine, believing with certainty that using the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved more lives than they erased because they eliminated the need for a drawn-out invasion of Japan...
He added: "I sleep clearly every night..."
And why shouldn't he? His heroic actions ended a dreadful war that would have cost thousands more American lives (including my father's, most likely) without his noble work. But that doesn't stop the writer from including references to the idiots who benefited from Tibbets' work but criticize it.
Author Richard Rhodes said Tibbets' feelings about the bombing he helped plan embodied public opinion at the time.
"He was so characteristic of that generation. He was a man who took great pride in what he did during the war, including the atomic bombing," said Rhodes, who wrote "The Making of the Atomic Bomb."
"It's hard for people today to think about the atomic bombings without feeling they were just out and out atrocities, but people at the time had a very different sense of what they needed to do," Rhodes said.
Translation: People today live safe and happy lives because previous generations weren't afraid to do their duty. If "people today" think dropping atomic bombs to end World War II was "just out and out atrocities," do they lose sleep over things the Japanese did?
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