On a humid July morning in Hiroshima, Japan, I was seated in a basement conference room beneath Peace Memorial Park alongside 40 other delegates in the U.S.-Japan Leadership Program, listening to the describe the .
Koko is a Hibakusha, literally a “bomb-affected” individual. She was merely an infant when the dropped by the B-29 bomber Enola Gay obliterated most of her city. Last week, her intellect was keen, her comments remarkably humorous, and her voice stable. She recounted how her father, a priest, initially hastened home after the deafening explosion and searing light to seek his wife and infant daughter rather than assisting the burned and blinded individuals surrounding him. That memory for the remainder of his life.
However, what genuinely astonished me was the subsequent revelation.
Koko had always imagined what she would do if she encountered any of the Enola Gay crew, men she presumed to be monsters. Yet, when she astonishingly did its co-pilot, Captain Robert Lewis, on the American “This is Your Life” game show in 1955, she observed a tear descend his cheek as he recounted viewing Hiroshima’s ruins from the aircraft and questioning: “My God, what have we done?”
“I comprehended I held no hatred for him,” she stated. “I detested war.” They eventually clasped hands. Koko then hesitated, and noted that “when he arrived in Hiroshima, President Obama of a Hiroshima survivor who ‘pardoned a pilot who operated the plane.’ I consistently ponder … was that me?”
I sensed an unusual current traversing my spine. My hands began to perspire. I had functioned as a speechwriter for Obama when he became the first incumbent U.S. President to . And I recollected having aided in gathering research for Ben Rhodes, the brilliant speechwriter who assisted in drafting those comments. As I collaborated with others to excavate stories and narratives, Koko’s account suddenly came to mind.
I approached the front of the conference room, situated merely a few hundred feet from the detonation’s epicenter. “Koko-san,” I stated softly, “I believe I can respond to your inquiry regarding President Obama because I conducted research for that address. That was your narrative that he recounted.”
Several of my fellow delegates recorded this instance on video. Within the recording, one can hear their gasps as they comprehend the unfolding event. Koko cries out and applauds in astonishment. Tears form. Koko and I hug. In some way, spanning eight decades and two continents, the diverse threads of history seemed to converge.
The worldwide account of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki persists as indistinct, and discussions on this topic. Some that it expedited the conclusion of World War II and preserved countless civilian and military lives that would have been sacrificed in a land invasion of Imperial Japan. Others contend the bombings were militarily superfluous, , and principally intended to demonstrate American might.
Subsequently, there are the complicated human narratives. For instance, a Japanese delegate disclosed that her grandfather was scheduled to die as a Kamikaze pilot on August 17, 1945. His life was saved when Japan capitulated two days prior, and he proceeded to encounter and wed her grandmother. I questioned if her very being was facilitated by the .
Nevertheless, for numerous individuals in the U.S., World War II is recalled as a “just war.” As a Jewish American, my primary education about the war came from Hebrew school, where I read about the atrocities of the Holocaust and the valor of our Greatest Generation in rescuing the world from Nazis and fascism. This is a history readily presented as a straightforward account of good versus evil, protagonist versus antagonist.
Encountering Koko and spending time in Japan made my perception of even this “just war” more complex. I observed how conflict is capable of ravaging communities, and its repercussions can persist for ages.
“The past is never deceased,” William Faulkner notably penned. “It’s not even gone.”
I once believed that saying pertained to remembrance. Yet, while seated next to Koko, who endured a nuclear bomb, encountered the individual who deployed it, and survived to witness her account narrated by an American President, I understood it also pertains to our future.
The past is not bygone because it continues to demand things of us in the present. As Americans, whether we contemplate ongoing global conflicts or discuss domestic immigration or criminal justice policies, our political systems and social media algorithms might prompt us to reduce individuals to mere adversaries.
Koko’s narrative implores us to discover a superior course, and to pursue human bonds. Her encounter with Captain Lewis enabled her to pardon a man who dropped a bomb upon her. Meeting another delegate whose grandparent had been a Kamikaze pilot compelled me to reconsider my presumptions as a Jewish American concerning the descendants of Axis power military personnel.
Our world is vast, and its past is intricate. Nevertheless, the planet remains sufficiently compact for two individuals—one who experienced history and one who endeavored to help recount it—to establish a connection. When this occurs, it is not merely memory that becomes vibrant. It is hope.