Today was the 70^th anniversary of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, a devastating event that led to the end of the War in the Pacific in 1945. Though many historians have argued that the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki prevented the deaths of many more people should the war have continued, I have always found it hard to agree that any nation, even during wartime, deserved to experienced the unimaginable horrors caused by a nuclear bomb. I have visited Hiroshima twice and have been very impressed and moved by the efforts the city and its people have made to promote peace worldwide to ensure no other people experience what its people did. Its Peace Park, with its haunting “Genbaku Dome” at Ground Zero, its memorial statues to various heroic individuals, including Sadako Sasaki, the little local girl who folded 1,000 origami cranes in the hope of being cured from her leukemia caused by the bomb. Because of Hiroshima and Sadako, origami cranes have become a worldwide symbol of peace and hope.

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