Analysis Of Thank God For The Atom Bomb By Paul Fussell

Thank God for the Atom Bomb by Paul Fussell is one of many essay written in favor of the Atom bomb that aided the ending of World War 2 in 1945. Fussells claim was that not only was the bomb necessary to end the war, but the bomb actually saved thousands of lives.
Fussell pointed out in his essay that those that opposed the dropping of the Atom Bomb were not of those men going into war and actually fighting. Those people often came from money or some high educational background. They often support the idea that the war was going to end anyway so the dropping of the bomb was extremely unnecessary and killed innocent people. However, as it was stated in the essay that the weeks leading up to the bombing as many as seven thousand soldiers were getting killed or injured every week..
It is known that since the beginning of their empire

the Japanese have always been a prideful people and even back in the late 30s to mid 40s the people understood that of the Japanese. The Japanese would rather lose millions of its citizens in the name of the emperor than surrender and show weakness. A Japanese foreign exchange student was quoted during a lecture about World War 2 saying that the surrendering is worse than death. So the bomb was necessary in that factor. Who knows how many Japanese lives and lives of young men from other countries would have lost their lives if the bomb hadn't have been dropped. In the essay Fussell mentioned that the Japanese had a pledge that they would sing during the war “One Hundred Million Souls for the Emperor,”
Personally, I think the Atom bomb was necessary for the war to end because the Japanese are a proud relentless people that would stop at almost nothing for their Emperor.

I also think the people that think the bomb was too much and unnecessary only say that because of the word “bomb”. Those people only think about the people that died from the bomb as opposed to the whole lot. over two million people died worldwide; of those two million people, roughly 226,000 people died from the bomb. That number is very large but I feel pretty certain that those 226,000 people prevented the worldwide total from reaching three

million.
The second claim Fussell says is that thinking about the past requires that you pretend you know nothing about the future. I think this claim is as interesting as it is true. In History class students always complain and ask “Why do we have to know this” and everytime I hear this I always get a little frustrated. Why is it important to learn our histories? It’s important because that's how we know how to solve future situations and prevent history from repeating itself. Sadly Fussell thinks this is hard to do and I think he’s right. Many people in today's society don’t care for their past and therefore are bound to repeat it eventually. We’ve already started to see the effects of this ignorance. People have a hard time putting themselves in the shoes of our ancestors because that requires them to throw away what they know about the present and that little bit of unknown blindness scares them.
The humorous thing about history repeating itself it that it happens when you least expect it. When World War 1 happened it was called “the war to end all wars” little did those people know that only 20 short years later World War 2 would commence and it would be even worse than the first one. Little did those people know that that would would become the largest war in world history to date, and what has our society learned from it? Nothing. Today we still see countries fight with each other. Countries with revolts and terrible conditions of life within themselves. We still have poverty and suffering. No one has learned a thing and if they have it's being ignored.
Finally I think Fussell’s last claim was something obvious but important. I believe that claim to be that wars divide people, especially racially and ethnically. In the last bit of the essay Fussell really illustrates this claim. This claim is clearly visible through this section of the essay “... on one American flagship the naval commander had erected a large sign enjoining all to “KILL JAPS! KILL JAPS! KILL MORE JAPS!”. Even the united states had its fair share of ignorance and fear during WW2 after the bombing of pearl harbor, whether or not the Japanese Internment camps where necessary to the national security is up for debate, however Japanese Americans were rounded up and put in camps during the war and no doubt the cause of that stemmed from the fear or prejudices against the Japanese. During a war no one is wrong and everyone is right; depending on who you ask. The nations of the world were hardly united and civilized to one another before WW2 and now they are even further from that even 70 years later. The World Wars aren't the only wars that have divided the world's nationalities, Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, all of these wars have incited ignorance and internalized racism. The kind of prejudices that have been installed in not only the American people but in people from all over the world is a type of damage i’m not so sure can or will be resolved in my lifetime, I can only see it getting worse as the years progress.
Paul Fussell’s essay gave an intriguing insight as to what goes on during a war, and reading that insight from someone that experienced the war first hand is eye opening.

The state of humanity is brittle and we need to start learning if we are to continue as the superior species. Wars, as the state we are in now are inevitable and more will happen in my lifetime and probably my children’s as well but that's not to say that's how it has to be. Just because that's how it’s always been doesn't mean that how it must

remain.