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2) The story mentions how the US never previously mentioned anything about this attack to the people of Hiroshima, and this leads me to ask, why did the US do this? How could they commit this atrocity? Why did they attack this innocent city? How could they kill and injure these 200,000 innocent people? It shocks me how someone could do that, create that amount of suffering, pain, and death to innocent people. The way that Hersey describes the destruction and the wounded, for example saying how a woman held a dead baby in her arms, and was crying for her presumed dead husband, or how a persons entire family was dead, mentioning that a group of soldiers was found alive with their eyes melted, how a man tries to help a women by lifting her and getting a handful of her flesh, and that some were so badly wounded they could barely be recognized as humans. Even more, the aftereffects such as radiation related diseases such as wounds reopening and the various deformities such as the "Hiroshima maidens", young unmarried women with face deformities who require plastic surgery. Also how many people related to the tragedy could not get jobs afterwards, and how this lead to poverty. These and many other examples just help feed the outstanding shock I feel, and the disbelief I have of how and why they did this. The author also mentions how most of the people mentioned in the story affected do not feel enraged by everything that has happened, they hold no grudges (except for Ms. Sasaki) or bitterness towards the people who caused this tragedy. Even Ms. Sasaki forms strong ties with Americans years later. Hersey mentions how one of the characters (Mr. Tanimoto) writes a letter to an American friend saying that everything that has happened was just a great sacrifice by the Japanese people, towards the goal of World Peace. One of the characters, Ms. Nakamura, mentioned to Hersey that the general mood of the Japanese was of acceptance, a sort of "that's what was expected, it is war anyway".