Kendrick Kwok / 9-10

Testing a Persons Character

The atomic bomb dropping was unnecessary. If you were put in the

position of the United States, would you have dropped the atomic bomb?

President Franklin Roosevelt, Einstein and several other scientists helped create

the atomic bomb, shortly after they began the “Manhattan Project.” This project

was basically used to make sure that a bomb would drop in Japan. From my point

of view, dropping the atomic bomb was unnecessary because it killed many

people, and the time and effort spent on it was too much.

On August 9th of 1945, Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bomb on

Japan in Hiroshima. In just an instant, twenty thousand tons of atomic explosion

kills sixty-six thousand people and injured sixty-nine thousand. Many more died

from the radiation and aftermath. Take for example this little boy at Hiroshima.

He was confirmed to be 3 kilometers from ground zero in Hiroshima on a

business trip was detonated. He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the

night in Hiroshima. He arrived at his home city of Nagasaki on August 8, and he

was exposed to radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first

officially recognized survivor from this bombing. However, like the many other

people, didn’t have the opportunity to survive this attack. I truly felt that this was

unnecessary. The part of the United States was beyond imagination. Just anything

through that time to bring the war to a close was shocking, and it ended in a
terrible catastrophe. No matter if they dropped the bomb or not, the United States

wouldn’t have a guaranteed surrender from Japan. Dropping the bomb would just

create more enemies, and make others hate the United States because dropping

the bomb looks bad on the United State’s character.

United States spent a minimum of 5.5 trillion on the atomic bomb. The lack of

data for some programs and the difficulty of handling costs for programs that had

both nuclear and conventional roles mean that the price is higher. This figure does

not include $320 billion in estimated future-year costs for storing and disposing of

more than five decades' worth of toxic and radioactive wastes and twenty billion

for disassembling nuclear weapons systems and disposing of surplus nuclear

materials. When those amounts are factored in, the total incurred costs of the U.S.

nuclear weapons program exceeds over 5.8 trillion!

There are many debates over whether or not the atomic bomb should be

dropped. Some say it should, to make it seem like the United States have power

and if Japan did not surrender we will stay win over them. However, I am like the

many who disagree with the dropping of the atomic bombs, because we spend too

much time and effort into it, killing many innocent people, and there is no

guarantee that Japan would surrender. The cons outweigh the pros. I shake my

head at the United States for making such a poor decision.