Sitting on a shaded, wooden bench in Nagasaki’s Peace Park, I gazed at a line of schoolchildren parading past in matching blue pants and pressed white collared shirts. They shouted “Hello!” in my direction, practicing their English. Smiling, I returned their “hello” and waved, sending them into a fit of giggles. I was taking a moment of reflection after touring the Atomic Bomb Museum and Memorial for Peace, ruminating in the greenery that now surrounds the Fat Man atomic bomb’s point of impact in Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.
Knots coiled in my stomach as I walked through the museum’s first two rooms, which are dedicated to artifacts found in the city’s rubble in the bomb’s aftermath. I was physically sickened looking at the photographs of charred children in their mothers’ mutilated arms, bodies pulled from beneath industrial rubble, and men’s blistered faces, a result of the explosion’s extreme heat. Too upset to ponder the remainder of the photographs, I came upon a display case that housed a light green glass bottle. Uncertain of the bottle’s significance, I peered closer and realized there were human bones within the glass: a man’s hand, forever clenched in the translucent glass, impeccably preserved.
The knots in my stomach did not dissipate as I moved into the peace memorial. Strung throughout both the museum and memorial are thousands of paper cranes, symbols of peace, and handcrafted signs in children’s script that call to “End War” and for “Peace throughout the World.”
Exiting the memorial, I felt the eyes of the schoolchildren turn from the horrific descriptions of the mushroom cloud toward me, the sole white foreigner in the exhibit. In my mind, their eyes questioned, “Why are you here?” and “How could you do this?” To them, I was a perpetrator of a tragedy that likely continues to affect their families to the present day. As a U.S. sailor, I was taking the sins of my country on my shoulders. As a visitor to the museum, I too was looking for answers. I wondered how, and if, I could be both a mechanism of war and a harbinger of peace.
The museum is focused on the atomic bomb’s effect on Nagasaki and omits other facts, such as the city’s role in the Japanese war effort, the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor, wartime atrocities committed by the Japanese, and the massacre of innocents in Nanjing, China. Reflecting on these horrors did little to assuage my discomfort, however.
Once outside in the crisp fall air, away from the photographs and display cases, I was better able to contemplate my role in the profession of arms. The U.S. Navy is a global force for good, but a career in warfare also can bring internal conflict, confusion, and reflection. As a naval officer, I think of myself as a protector of civil liberties, equality, and freedom. I could not be in the Navy if I did not wholeheartedly believe that my work helps make the world a better place. It was just a week ago that I assisted in the recovery of two sailors adrift in the Pacific Ocean. These pleasure-boat sailors would have perished if not for the crew of the USS Ashland (LSD-48). Yet how does good, the ending of World War II in the Pacific theater, derive from such destruction and loss of innocent life?
One of my favorite books about the meaning of naval service, Eric Greitens’ The Heart and the Fist, best describes the answer that surfaces in my heart. Some evil in our world, Greitens explains, cannot be overcome through diplomacy or humanitarian advocacy. Rather, some evils can be annihilated or prevented only through force.
I follow in the footsteps of the airmen, sailors, and soldiers who dropped the atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945. But I also follow in the footsteps of the servicemen who freed the starved prisoners of concentration camps. I follow in the wake of sailors who unrelentingly fought the Pearl Harbor fleet through three waves of Japanese attacks. I follow the example of U.S. soldiers who gave their lives to end genocide in a country they had never seen, to protect people they never would know. I embody the legacy of the past generations of naval officers, and I need to live and serve honorably to carry on that legacy.
Ensign Zisselman is currently serving on board the USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19).