Them, Too
War creates despair for innocent civilians. They have no control in the war and are the biggest victims. They have no idea what is going on but just have to find their way to survive. Comfort Women from occupied countries were young girls who were just trying to support their families or have gotten abducted. Those youthful flowers were cut away from their garden by predators. They were taken away just like that.
However, victims who experienced pain of war does include Japanese as well. Towards the end of the war, traumatic events happened in Japan. On August 6th and 9th in 1945, United States dropped two nuclear weapons over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was the first time in history that atomic bomb was used to kill ordinary citizens. The bombings killed as many as 226,000 people and about half of the deaths in each city occurred on the first day. These victims vanished as helpless dusts and many of them endured the pain the next few months, being destroyed inside and out of their bodies. Humans, animals, and all lives literally ended up in death.
Japan eventually surrendered on August 15th, then World War II came to an end on September 2nd.
And what did they get after the war? War had ended but the trauma continued for everybody.
A lot of Comfort Women survivors were unable to return home. Some Japanese troops killed them before returning to Japan, but they abandoned most of them. The survivors had no support or help to go back to their home countries. They were completely on their own to survive or to return home. Many of them couldn’t find a way to go back so they ended up living where they were mobilized. Others felt like they wouldn’t be welcomed to their home countries because of the criticism they would receive under the label of Comfort Women. Imagine your hopes and dreams being taken away but you can’t bring them back even after many years, because you lost your family, home, and dignity.
The survivors of bombings in Japan suffered from cancer, leukemia, birth defect, and many other long-term diseases. It resulted the lifelong destruction for them. This massacre still remains as indescribable cruelty that should never be repeated.
In the end, war only destroyed the civilization of mankind. It created inhumane monsters who caused innumerable victims around the world. Who do we do this for and why do we do this? We have to remember that the war is still an on-going issue in this world, right now at this time.