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Yesterday 8/6/06 was the 61st anniversary of the USA dropping the Atomic Bomb on Japan. Mankind has not been the same since the event took place. It was truly a watershed event in that for the first time man could make himself extinct.

What marked yesterdays anniversary for me was that I was able to meet General Paul Tibbets, the man who was the pilot of the Enola Gay. In other words the man who dropped the bomb.

At 91 he is still very alert, even though a bit deaf. I asked him if he had regrets about the lives that were lost. His response was that he was doing the job he was ordered to do. That once the bomb was released he felt relief that he put it on target without fumbling the ball so to speak. Yet Gen Tibbets feels a "sense of Shame for the whole Human race for accepting bloodshed as a means of settling disputes."

Further, "Only a fool speaks of human warfare. There is no such thing as General Sherman and other competent witnesses have testified. It has the smell of hypocrisy when self proclaimed humanitarians draw a distinction between an acceptable and an intolerable brand of human crulety...."

The feeling that I got from Gen Tibbets is that he felt that he wasn't a hero but rather he was just doing his job.

Another fact that I didn't know was that the orginal planning was for a bomb to be dropped on both Germany and Japan simitanously. However Germany had surrendered before the operational planning could even begin.