Analysis Of Paul Fussell's Essay Thank God For The Atomic Bomb

902 Words2 Pages

In a matter of minutes, more than 100 thousand lives were lost, and many families would be destroyed forever. Within the next few months no one knew almost 40,000 more lives would be lost from lasting effects on their bodies. The atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, gave almost a clear ending to the war. This may seem like a brutal way to end the war, but by killing those people it saved lives on both the Japanese, and the American sides of the war. Paul Fussell gave us an insight into the war that not many Americans had heard before writing the essay Thank God for the Atom Bomb. All over America, we believed that the bomb was to hurt others and give us an advantage. Fussell helps Americans understand that the bombing was …show more content…

More importantly he was also an infantry lieutenant during World War 2. He details his experiences to other authors who have reported about the war, and explains the real truth behind the dropping of the atomic bomb. In his short essay, he is very blunt and straight to the point about everything; not holding anything back from the readers that will be seeing his essay. “Fussell went on to argue that those who did have firsthand experience of World War II combat were “not elaborately educated,” and thus were unlikely to articulate the benefits of dropping the bombs when critics, who had been nowhere near the war’s devastation, heaped scorn on the decision to use atomic bombs on Japan.” (Sternberg, Libby) People still to this day do not believe what United States did what was the right thing but they were only seeing what the media had published and the publicity headlines, not what was actually happening in the battlefield. The Government, carries out actions that the and citizens don’t fully understand the cause and effect system of these …show more content…

We need to get educated, and that is the major reason Fussell wrote this essay, is to inform people and help them learn so that we don’t make the same mistake. Hopefully, in the future. The many places you would not expect to find a life changing phrase, caught Paul’s eye, “In life, experience is the great teacher. In Scotch, Teacher’s is the great experience.” We learn best when we make a mistake, not when doing something right. Sometimes a loss is something no one wants to encounter in their lifetime, but it will always happen, and that makes you a stronger and better person than you were before. For example children, if you tell them to not eat too much candy on Halloween night they will not listen but when they do it themselves and get very sick they will learn a lesson, and they will keep it in their past experiences within their

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