A friend of mine recently posted a review of book she just read regarding the US bombing of Japan during WWII. This particular book focused on the nukes we dropped on them, and the generally ignored aftermath of that particular action. She was particularly moved by this book as it really highlighted what the after effects of a nuke are on the survivors. This made what had been an intellectual thing into something she could really identify with. This book did NOT go into depth on whether or not dropping the bomb as we did was justified in the long run.
This book probably would not affect me nearly as much as it did her. I spent the cold-war years living in the largest city of my state, and within 5 miles of a major international airport and Air National Guard base. Two guaranteed targets should the evil communists ever launch their nukes. For the nukes aimed at Downtown, we lived in the "dead in a month" radius. However, we were in the "Dead in a few days" radius for the nukes aimed at the airport. This particular Sword of Damocles hung over our heads until the Soviet empire fell.
I was very much aware of the kinds of things that level of radiation can do to a body. So much so, that the half plan our family had was to go out on the front lawn and watch the light show instead of cowering in the basement. A kind of pointless futility that we were screwed no matter which way the bombs fell.
Now that I work at a larger higher educational institution sited on a coast, my targeting priority has diminished somewhat. What lands here probably won't be as big as what would land on the old homestead, but we'd get almost no notice. Should IT happen while I was at home, the intervening earth would protect us from the radiation flash, but fallout and fire would do quite a bit of damage. Call it, dead of leukemia in 10 years.
And people wonder why we cheered so much when the cold war ended.
This book probably would not affect me nearly as much as it did her. I spent the cold-war years living in the largest city of my state, and within 5 miles of a major international airport and Air National Guard base. Two guaranteed targets should the evil communists ever launch their nukes. For the nukes aimed at Downtown, we lived in the "dead in a month" radius. However, we were in the "Dead in a few days" radius for the nukes aimed at the airport. This particular Sword of Damocles hung over our heads until the Soviet empire fell.
I was very much aware of the kinds of things that level of radiation can do to a body. So much so, that the half plan our family had was to go out on the front lawn and watch the light show instead of cowering in the basement. A kind of pointless futility that we were screwed no matter which way the bombs fell.
Now that I work at a larger higher educational institution sited on a coast, my targeting priority has diminished somewhat. What lands here probably won't be as big as what would land on the old homestead, but we'd get almost no notice. Should IT happen while I was at home, the intervening earth would protect us from the radiation flash, but fallout and fire would do quite a bit of damage. Call it, dead of leukemia in 10 years.
And people wonder why we cheered so much when the cold war ended.