Gee, And It Seemed Like Such A Good Idea At The Time
I mean, what could be more family-friendly?
CINCINNATI (AP) — A popular southwest Ohio air show has canceled plans to stage a re-enactment of the devastating World War II atomic bomb attack on Japan after protests, officials said Thursday.
Dayton Air Show spokeswoman Brenda Kerfoot said the June 22-23 event at Dayton International Airport will keep a planned “Great Wall of Fire” pyrotechnic show but not as an event meant to re-enact the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing of Hiroshima. The B-29 plane “Fifi,” similar to the Enola Gay B-29 bomber used to attack Japan, will remain in the show but in a separate role.
Air show officials said the re-enactment was meant to highlight a historic event that helped end the war and save lives that would have been lost if the war had been prolonged.
Never ever trust a B-29 named “Fifi”.
Fun, People, Politics | Mr. Bingley | 
April 18, 2013 3:19 pm
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I’m not seeing a problem with the re-enactment. Bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki did save millions of lives, American and Japanese, ending a war that was started by Japan in the first place. That’s a historical fact, often ignored by lefties wanting to re-write American history. Yeah, it’s worth telling the kids.
Boo on the Dayton hippies. They need to get a life. And a petition signed by 200 people? Big whoop.
Fun fact: There are airshows that include a re-enactment of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Would the Dayton hippies have a problem with that?
I was planning a diatribe on the subject when I clicked. But I think JeffS has just said all I wanted to say. Especially in the first paragraph.
P.S. Always thought you preferred education to nice with kids? Ask yours.
That said, I do agree about “fifi.”
Oh here’s no doubt that the bombings hastened the war’s end and saved a lot of lives. I just don’t think we need to re-enact a very brutal, however necessary, act in our history in order to remember it and why we had to do it.
True, Mr. Bingley.
But that argument could be applied to any war re-enactment. Civil War battles were no less brutal than Hiroshima just because black powder ruled the day; check out the histories on just how men died on those battlefields. Dying of a lead Minie ball through your guts can’t be any less brutal than dying of radiation burns. Just a different sort of brutality.
The real differences are (a) retail versus wholesale, in terms of the numbers of casualties (which are horrific in any event, but more so for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, especially for civilians), and (b) the technologies involved (i.e., muzzle loaders and primitive repeating rifles versus aircraft and nuclear weapons).
I submit that while any war is brutal, re-enactments are just a faint shadow of what really happened. But they do honor the memories of the fallen (if done appropriately, I concede), and keep those memories alive in a very real, and horrific way.
Better a re-enactment than the real thing.
And caving to a bunch of lefties engaged in one of their knee jerk reaction to one of their long standing emotional issues is hardly something to support.
And, yeah, I’m not sure I’d want aby bomber named “Fifi” around me. 🙂
Maybe Fifi is an acronym?
“Oh here’s no doubt that the bombings hastened the war’s end and saved a lot of lives. I just don’t think we need to re-enact a very brutal, however necessary, act in our history in order to remember it and why we had to do it.”
I disagree. For precisely the points you made. Sometimes it IS necessary to perform brutal acts in order to forestall far worse. Life isn’t nice.
And everyone needs to understand that. Else we get exactly what we’ve got nowadays. “Save the snails!”
Sigh.