Today is August 6 and on this date in history, in 1945, the USA dropped a nuclear device on Hiroshima, Japan.

This act continues to cause debate, and since I have followed it to a moderate extent, I conclude that the historical tide is turning against the use of the weapon. Realizing that the revisionist historians have the benefit of knowing a vast amount more of facts than Truman did at the time, the question is really interesting and still topical.

My generation until recently never had any doubts about the bombing. My dad was in Central Europe on VE Day in Patton's Third Army, and the War Department was starting to mobilize forces for the Japanese invasion by rotating them home from Europe. The individual soldier who fought Germany thought that he had done his bit and it was another's turn to invade Japan. I doubt that there would have been mutiny but to force the soldiers who fought in Europe also to fight Japan would have caused great bitterness. I personally know this from those poor folk who were called up for Korea after their WWII service.

I went to many veterans affairs with my dad, and I never met a person who did not approve of the use of the weapon. Almost all of the WWII veterans are gone from the scene. My dad died early this year at age 95. This question will live on for centuries. I am interested in reaction from the learned members of RIA.