On the morning of August 6th, 1945, air-raid sirens alerted the city of Hiroshima to the approach of American planes. Air-raid sirens had become a daily event in Hiroshima, as a nearby lake served as a rendezvous point for bombing raids throughout the south of Japan. Minutes later the all-clear sounded. Since there were only three planes, it was assumed that it was only a reconnaissance patrol. The people of Hiroshima emerged from their bomb-shelters.

Moments later, at 8:15 am, the world ended for the people of Hiroshima. A co-pilot on a B-29 named the Enola Gay wrote in his log "My God, what have we done?" and 130,000 people died. Three days later, the same fate befell the city of Nagasaki, and another 70,000 died. The atomic age had brutally begun.

When I was nine, my family visited Hiroshima. I would like to say that this was part of some peace pilgrimage, the beginning of a lifetime of peace activism, but that was not the case. We went because of the global reach of U.S. militarism, because an uncle was stationed at the U.S. Marine base outside of Hiroshima. Along with the other sights in the area, we went to see Peace Park, Hiroshima's memorial to the devastation of the atomic bomb.

My memories are that of a nine-year-old, as interested in the enormous beetles for sale in the stores throughout Hiroshima as I was in the history. But one cannot visit Peace Park, and stand on the spot where hell opened up on the earth in a 6,000-degree flash of heat, and not be moved. One can't look across the river at the A-bomb Dome, the skeletal ruins of Hiroshima's Industrial Promotion Hall left standing in memorial, and not tremble for a moment at the terrifying power of the bomb. My parents deemed my brother and me too young to see the Peace Museum--with its gruesome photos and artifacts of the bomb's deadly impact--but we could hear the stories.

"The young girl pointed to the sky and said 'Mommy, look at the airplane.' I reached for her, but she turned and burst into flames."

I don't remember whose story this is, and to whoever that person is, I must apologize. It may be that in the 21 years since I heard it, I have remembered the story wrong--but how vividly I remember my own mother reading it from our guidebook as we toured Peace Park. The image of that child, probably no older than I, bursting into flames will never leave me.

This is not the picture of nuclear war you will hear from the Pentagon. The language of nuclear war is one of denial: "deterrence," "delivery vehicle," "credibility," "first strike," "sub-strategic," "nuclear umbrella,"--all sterile words to hide the reality, the shattered bodies, the little girl bursting into flames.

Or the boy, swimming in one of Hiroshima's seven rivers with his friends. He dove under the water the moment that the flash hit, and the water protected him from the intense heat. But when he emerged, the friends around him were all horribly, fatally burned. He dove under water in a normal world, and emerged in Hell.

Some will argue that the use of the atomic bomb was necessary to end the war, that it did less harm than the inevitable invasion of Japan would have. Others argue that Japan was on the verge of collapse, and that the bomb was used to threaten the Soviet Union and begin the Cold War (a view I think is closer to, but not entirely, the truth). Historians will argue these points--as they should--but in the end there is only one truth that matters: having seen this destruction, we can never let it happen again.

Sadly we have a long way to go to insure that. In a few days, when we commemorate the 54th anniversary of that first atomic bomb, we will do so in a world still terrifyingly close to seeing nuclear weapons used again. We will do so in a world with more than 10,000 active nuclear warheads, each one more powerful than the one that destroyed Hiroshima. We will do so in a world where thousands of those weapons remain on high alert, ready to launch with only a few minutes notice.

The United States refuses to take the simple step of adopting a policy not to be the first to use nuclear weapons, even though it has the largest conventional military in the world. Russia declares itself to be more dependent than ever on using nuclear weapons to make up for a conventional military that is falling apart. India and Pakistan have openly tested weapons, with the terrifying prospect that their long-smoldering border dispute could flare into a nuclear war. Both Russia and the United States have seen incidents in this decade where either human or computer error caused their military command to think they were under attack, almost triggering a nuclear war in retaliation.

However, what worries me most is not the threat of an accident triggering a global nuclear war, but rather the threat that some nation will start a "limited" nuclear war. It could be India and Pakistan lobbing their handful of warheads at each other, or Russia using a few tactical nuclear weapons in Chechnya or some other breakaway republic to do what its army cannot, or, the United States deciding it's better to use a few nuclear weapons than to risk U.S. casualties. (U.S. military strategy is increasingly to use cruise missiles and high-altitude bombing to destroy without risking American lives--are tactical nukes the next step?) Such a "limited" nuclear war might not result in the global extinction that we feared under the cold war, but it would mean a repeat of the horror that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki: the whole-scale slaughter of civilians. In some ways, as the threat of global annihilation decreases, the threat that some nation will risk using nuclear weapons grows.

But there is also a great ray of hope: during the 54 years since the first atomic bombs were used on Japan, we have prevented another from being used. If the peace movement has not stopped the governments of this planet from wasting uncountable resources in building and planning for nuclear war, we have thus far prevented it from happening. If we have been able to prevent it in the past, we can prevent it in the future. We have an obligation to the memory of those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and to our children who will inherit this world from us, to see that this tragedy never happens again.

In the center of Peace Park, on roughly the same spot where the deadly bomb exploded, lies a memorial arch with an inscription that translates as "Rest in peace, for the mistake shall not be repeated." Let's make sure this message remains true.

>From August 7-9, the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (at 16159 Clear Creek Road, Poulsbo) will hold their annual weekend of reflection and action against the deployment of Trident nuclear submarines at Bangor Naval Base. Last year, protesters blocked the main gates at Bangor and were arrested. Eight were brought to trial and acquitted by a Kitsap County Court--a victory for the protesters and a validation of their key defense strategy: nuclear weapons are illegal under international law. To participate in the weekend's activities, which may include an action of nonviolent civil disobedience, contact Ground Zero at 360-377-2586 or http://www.gzcenter.org or info@gzcenter.org.