[Dialogue] WWII-trailer, Hiroshima, Bin Ladin

[Don Hinkelman]

Hi Jay,

I watched this film and was touched. There are great and horrific events in our history that need symbolic reflection, honoring, and closure.

My father was a non-combat WWII vet, and he talks about how his buddies stayed up all night talking about the atomic bomb after it went off, and what it meant for the future. He gave me a photo of the man from his hometown who dropped that bomb on Hiroshima. He was a hero to many, but I wonderied how he slept thinking about the 200,000 people he killed. In Japan, the Hiroshima bombing is an annual pilgrimage in August. A US ambassador attended for the first time in 2010. School children around the country make strings of a 1000 origami cranes as a prayer for peace. 

I watch the news and see Americans holding flags dancing in the streets after the news of Bin Ladin's death.  Another sort of symbolic event. Go to Aljazeera and read a poignant narrative on his life, or to the BBC for another view. There are as many perspectives on an event as there are people who experienced them. Somehow one or two narratives become dominant, and we call that 'history'.

Don

Obituary:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2011/05/20115251555423645.html

WWII remembering:
> http://media.causes.com/1060527?p_id=175378540

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