I had the privilege of visiting ground zero and the museum at Peace Park in 1979. It was truly one of the most memorable experiences of my entire life. And not just because of the horrific devastation memorialized there. It was also the dignity, compassion, and forgiveness of the Japanese people that I experienced first hand there.
You see, as I made my way from exhibit to exhibit there a deep sense of sadness, guilt and shame slowly swept over me. I found myself choking back tears.
However, when I came upon one framed image I couldn't hold it back anymore. I stood alone in front of that image in a crowded museum and openly wept for a tragedy that was perpetrated by my country before I was even born.
The image was of the shadow of a child bouncing a ball with a dog by their side, ball mid air, cast on one of the few walls left standing in the city... vaporized in the blast leaving only that shadow as evidence of their existence.
It was simply too much for me as I wept aloud in public.
Separated by our language barrier, but united in our humanity, total strangers came to comfort me, a Marine - an instrument of the machine responsible for the atrocity memorialized there.
I could not imagine that a people could be so compassionate with such a person as me that represented what I did under such circumstances. But they were. I didn't understand much Japanese but did recognize one phrase they were all repeating as they hugged and comforted me -"It's okay."
But it's not okay. It never was and never will be.
