Soon to be HUGH!!!! DU and the Atom Bomb at Hiroshima

[dutch508]

Here we go, folks, it's that American hating time again:

mogster  (1000+ posts)       Wed Aug-06-08 04:18 PM
Original message http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3740775
Today is the day of the Hiroshima a-bomb
 Advertisements [?]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshi...

After six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities, the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" was dropped on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed on August 9 by the detonation of the "Fat Man" nuclear bomb over Nagasaki. These are to date the only attacks with nuclear weapons in the history of warfare.

The bombs killed as many as 140,000 people in Hiroshima and 80,000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945, roughly half on the days of the bombings. Since then, thousands more have died from injuries or illness attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bombs. In both cities, the overwhelming majority of the dead were civilians.

Since then, nuclear weapons has never been used. Let's take the opportunity to remember the horror, hopefully strengthening our resolve that such weapons never will be used again.

Parche  (1000+ posts)      Wed Aug-06-08 04:20 PM
Response to Original message
1. As Long As No One Attacks Pearl Harbor
 Wake Island, Guam............... 

Tombstone for ya, buddy?

anonymous171  (1000+ posts)       Wed Aug-06-08 04:21 PM
Response to Original message
2. Aren't today's atomic bombs much more powerful?

 

YOY  (1000+ posts)      Wed Aug-06-08 04:21 PM
Response to Original message
3. and every time this year at DU...FLAMEWAR!
 n.t.

Let's go to WIKI and see what they say:

Those who argue in favor of the decision to drop the bombs generally assert that they caused the Japanese surrender, preventing massive casualties on both sides in the planned invasion of Japan.

Those who argue against the decision to drop the bombs characterize them as inherently immoral, war crimes or, crimes against humanity and/or state terrorism. They may also argue that they were militarily unnecessary.

The debate over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a subject of contention concerning the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which took place on August 6 and 9, 1945 and marked the end of World War II. The debate amongst scholars, popular media, and cultures tends to focus on the ethics and necessity of the bombings. The role of the bombings in Japan's surrender and the United States' justification for them has been the subject of scholarly and popular debate for decades. J. Samuel Walker writes in an April 2005 overview of recent historiography on the issue, "the controversy over the use of the bomb seems certain to continue." Walker notes that "The fundamental issue that has divided scholars over a period of nearly four decades is whether the use of the bomb was necessary to achieve victory in the war in the Pacific on terms satisfactory to the United States."[1]

Fundamentally Immoral
On August 8, 1945, Albert Camus addressed the bombing of Hiroshima in an editorial in the French newspaper Combat:

"Mechanized civilization has just reached the ultimate stage of barbarism. In a near future, we will have to choose between mass suicide and intelligent use of scientific conquests[...] This can no longer be simply a prayer; it must become an order which goes upward from the peoples to the governments, an order to make a definitive choice between hell and reason."[38]
In 1946, a report by the Federal Council of Churches entitled Atomic Warfare and the Christian Faith, includes the following passage:

"As American Christians, we are deeply penitent for the irresponsible use already made of the atomic bomb. We are agreed that, whatever be one's judgment of the war in principle, the surprise bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are morally indefensible."

[edit] The Bombings as War Crimes
A number of notable individuals and organizations have criticized the bombings, many of them characterizing them as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and/or state terrorism. Two early critics of the bombings were Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard, who had together spurred the first bomb research in 1939 with a jointly written letter to President Roosevelt. Szilard, who had gone on to play a major role in the Manhattan Project, argued:

"Let me say only this much to the moral issue involved: Suppose Germany had developed two bombs before we had any bombs. And suppose Germany had dropped one bomb, say, on Rochester and the other on Buffalo, and then having run out of bombs she would have lost the war. Can anyone doubt that we would then have defined the dropping of atomic bombs on cities as a war crime, and that we would have sentenced the Germans who were guilty of this crime to death at Nuremberg and hanged them?"[39]
A number of scientists who worked on the bomb were against its use. Led by Dr. James Franck, seven scientists submitted a report to the Interim Committee (which advised the President) in May 1945, saying:

"If the United States were to be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race for armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons."[40]
Mark Selden writes, "Perhaps the most trenchant contemporary critique of the American moral position on the bomb and the scales of justice in the war was voiced by the Indian jurist Radhabinod Pal, a dissenting voice at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, who balked at accepting the uniqueness of Japanese war crimes. Recalling Kaiser Wilhelm II's account of his duty to bring World War I to a swift end-"everything must be put to fire and sword; men, women and children and old men must be slaughtered and not a tree or house be left standing." Pal observed:

"this policy of indiscriminate murder to shorten the war was considered to be a crime. In the Pacific war under our consideration, if there was anything approaching what is indicated in the above letter of the German Emperor, it is the decision coming from the Allied powers to use the bomb. Future generations will judge this dire decision...If any indiscriminate destruction of civilian life and property is still illegal in warfare, then, in the Pacific War, this decision to use the atom bomb is the only near approach to the directives of the German Emperor during the first World War and of the Nazi leaders during the second World War."
Selden mentions another critique of the nuclear bombing, which he says the U.S. government effectively suppressed for twenty-five years, as worth mention. On August 11, 1945, the Japanese government filed an official protest over the atomic bombing to the U.S. State Department through the Swiss Legation in Tokyo, observing that:

"combatant and noncombatant men and women, old and young, are massacred without discrimination by the atmospheric pressure of the explosion, as well as by the radiating heat which result therefrom. Consequently there is involved a bomb having the most cruel effects humanity has ever known. . . . The bombs in question, used by the Americans, by their cruelty and by their terrorizing effects, surpass by far gas or any other arm, the use of which is prohibited. Japanese protests against U.S. desecration of international principles of war paired the use of the atomic bomb with the earlier firebombing, which massacred old people, women and children, destroying and burning down Shinto and Buddhist temples, schools, hospitals, living quarters, etc. . . . They now use this new bomb, having an uncontrollable and cruel effect much greater than any other arms or projectiles ever used to date. This constitutes a new crime against humanity and civilization." [41]
Prof. Seldon concludes that despite the war crimes committed by the Empire of Japan, nevertheless, "the Japanese protest correctly pointed to U.S. violations of internationally accepted principles of war with respect to the wholesale destruction of populations." [42]

In 1963 the bombings were the subject of a judicial review in Ryuichi Shimoda et al. v. The State.[43] On the 22nd anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the District Court of Tokyo declined to rule on the legality of nuclear weapons in general, but found that "the attacks upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki caused such severe and indiscriminate suffering that they did violate the most basic legal principles governing the conduct of war."[44]

 
A Hibakusha woman severely burned by the Hiroshima blastIn the opinion of the court, the act of dropping an atomic bomb on cities was at the time governed by international law found in the Hague Regulations on Land Warfare of 1907 and the Hague Draft Rules of Air Warfare of 1922–1923[45] and was therefore illegal.[46]

As the first military use of nuclear weapons, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki represent to some the crossing of a crucial barrier. Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, wrote of President Truman:

”He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species. It was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity."[47]
Kurznick is one of several observers who believe that the U.S. was largely motivated in carrying out the bombings by a desire to demonstrate the power of its new weapon to the Soviet Union. Historian Mark Selden of Cornell University has stated "Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan."[47]

Takashi Hiraoka, mayor of Hiroshima, upholding nuclear disarmament, said in a hearing to The Hague International Court of Justice (ICJ):

"It is clear that the use of nuclear weapons, which cause indiscriminate mass murder that leaves [effects on] survivors for decades, is a violation of international law".[48][49]
Iccho Itoh, the mayor of Nagasaki, declared in the same hearing:

"It is said that the descendants of the atomic bomb survivors will have to be monitored for several generations to clarify the genetic impact, which means that the descendants will live in anxiety for [decades] to come. [...] with their colossal power and capacity for slaughter and destruction, nuclear weapons make no distinction between combatants and non-combatants or between military installations and civilian communities [...] The use of nuclear weapons [...] therefore is a manifest infraction of international law."[48]
John Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations, used Hiroshima and Nagasaki as examples why the US should not adhere to the International Criminal Court (ICC):

"A fair reading of the treaty [the Rome Statute concerning the ICC], for example, leaves the objective observer unable to answer with confidence whether the United States was guilty of war crimes for its aerial bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan in World War II. Indeed, if anything, a straightforward reading of the language probably indicates that the court would find the United States guilty. A fortiori, these provisions seem to imply that the United States would have been guilty of a war crime for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is intolerable and unacceptable."[50]
Although bombings do not meet the definition of genocide, some consider that this definition is too strict, and that these bombings do represent a genocide.[51][52] For example, University of Chicago historian Bruce Cumings states there is a consensus among historians to Martin Sherwin's statement, that "the Nagasaki bomb was gratuitous at best and genocidal at worst."[53]

Historical accounts indicate that the decision to use the atomic bombs was made in order to provoke an early surrender of Japan by use of an awe-inspiring power. These observations have caused some commentators to state that the incident was an act of "war terrorism". Michael Walzer wrote, "... And, finally, there is war terrorism: the effort to kill civilians in such large numbers that their government is forced to surrender. Hiroshima seems to me the classic case."[54] This type of claim eventually prompted historian Robert Newman, a supporter of the bombings, to argue that the practice of terrorism is justified in some cases.
Certain scholars and historians have characterized the atomic bombings of Japan as a form of state terrorism. This interpretation centers around a definition of terrorism as the targeting of innocents to achieve a political goal. As Frances V. Harbour points out, the meeting of the Target Committee in Los Alamos on 10 and 11 May 1945 suggested targeting the large population centers of Kyoto or Hiroshima for a "psychological effect" and to make "the initial use sufficiently spectacular for the importance of the weapon to be internationally recognized."[56][57] As such, Professor Harbour suggests the goal was to create terror for political ends both in and beyond Japan.[57] However, Burleigh Taylor Wilkins has written that it stretches the meaning of "terrorism" to include wartime acts.[58]

 
The black marker indicates "ground zero" of the Nagasaki atomic bomb explosion.
[edit] Militarily unnecessary
Those who argue that the bombings were unnecessary on military grounds hold that Japan was already essentially defeated and ready to surrender.

The 1946 United States Strategic Bombing Survey determined it had been unnecessary to the winning of the war. After interviewing hundreds of Japanese civilian and military leaders after Japan surrendered, it reported:

"Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey's opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated."[59][60]
One of the most notable individuals with this opinion was then-General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower. He wrote in his memoir The White House Years:

"In 1945 Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives."[61][62]
Other U.S. military officers who disagreed with the necessity of the bombings include General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy (the Chief of Staff to the President), Brigadier General Carter Clarke (the military intelligence officer who prepared intercepted Japanese cables for U.S. officials),[62] and Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet.[63]

"The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military point of view, in the defeat of Japan." Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.[60]
"The use of [the atomic bombs] at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender." Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to President Truman.[60]
 
What was originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall has now been turned into the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. The atomic bomb exploded almost directly overhead.The survey assumed that conventional bombing attacks on Japan would greatly increase as the bombing capabilities of July 1945 were ...a fraction of its planned proportion...[64] due to a steadily high production rate of new B-29s and the reallocation of European airpower to the Pacific. When hostilities ended, the USAAF had approximately 3,700 B-29s of which only about 1000 were deployed.[65]

Had the war gone on these and still more aircraft would have brought devastation far worse than either bomb to many more cities. The results of conventional strategic bombing at the cease-fire were summed up thusly:

"...On the basis of photo coverage, intelligence estimated that 175 square miles of urban area in 66 cities were wiped out. Total civilian casualties stemming directly from the urban attacks were estimated at 330,000 killed, 476,000 injured, and 9,200,000 rendered homeless." General Haywood S. Hansell.[65]
Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's research has led him to conclude that the atomic bombings themselves were not even the principal reason for capitulation. Instead, he contends, it was the swift and devastating Soviet victories in Manchuria that forced the Japanese surrender on August 15, 1945,[66] though the War Council did not know the extent of the losses to the Soviets in China at that time.


[edit] Racism and dehumanization
Historian James J. Weingartner sees a connection between the American mutilation of Japanese war dead and the bombings.[67] According to Weingartner both were partially the result of a dehumanization of the enemy. "[t]he widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human constituted an emotional context which provided another justification for decisions which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands."[68] On the second day after the Nagasaki bomb, Truman stated: "The only language they seem to understand is the one we have been using to bombard them. When you have to deal with a beast you have to treat him like a beast. It is most regrettable but nevertheless true".[69][70]

[Splashdown]

God bless Harry Truman for making the difficult decision to drop the bomb. My father and My uncle would have been casualties of an invasion. Family reunions would be way, way smaller, as almost all of my cousins and I wouldn't be here.

Truman's decision saved hundreds of thousands--possibly millions--of both American and Japanese lives.

[djones520]

God bless Harry Truman for making the difficult decision to drop the bomb. My father and My uncle would have been casualties of an invasion. Family reunions would be way, way smaller, as almost all of my cousins and I wouldn't be here.

Truman's decision saved hundreds of thousands--possibly millions--of both American and Japanese lives.

I've read the plans for the actual invasions of Kyushu and Honshu.  Makes D-Day look like a training session...

[dutch508]

LynnTheDem  (1000+ posts)       Wed Aug-06-08 04:31 PM
Response to Original message
9. The majority of Americans now believe nuking Japan was the wrong thing to do.
 It was also done on a pack of lies, which survive to this day (such as the infamous myth "dropping nukes on Japan saved insert-number-here American lives!)

It was a war crime.

It was unnecessary.

It was drastically the wrong thing to do.

And we've been doing the wrong thing ever since.

[djones520]

LynnTheDem  (1000+ posts)       Wed Aug-06-08 04:31 PM
Response to Original message
9. The majority of Americans now believe nuking Japan was the wrong thing to do.
 It was also done on a pack of lies, which survive to this day (such as the infamous myth "dropping nukes on Japan saved insert-number-here American lives!)

It was a war crime.

It was unnecessary.

It was drastically the wrong thing to do.

And we've been doing the wrong thing ever since.

If that majority exists, it's because we've got moonbats like you teaching in our public school systems, warping history to fit your twisted needs.

[Odin's Hand]

LynntheDem is the same retard that doesn't believe mustard gas is a toxic enough agent to be classified as a "chemical weapon". I wouldn't personally put too much stock into anything she says.

[BannedFromDU]

LynntheDem is the same retard that doesn't believe mustard gas is a toxic enough agent to be classified as a "chemical weapon". I wouldn't personally put too much stock into anything she says.

She probably expels mustard gas from her behind on a regular basis, and it doesn't kill her...

[Chris_]

I am personally grateful to Harry Truman, Curtis LeMay, Paul Tibbetts (and the rest of the 509th Bomb Group). 

Without the dropping of that bomb, my grandfather - a newly trained paratrooper who had just been assigned to the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne - would have very likely seen some of the earliest action in any invasion of the Japanese home Islands, and being as green as a spring blade of grass, it very likely would have been the last action he saw.  No Grandpa, no DefiantSix's momma.  No DefiantSix's momma, and DefiantSix would have never been here to grace the world with... well with his....

Aw shit, I just wouldn't have been here.

[franksolich]

My ancestors were nowhere anywhere near the Pacific Ocean in August 1945, but I still have to thank Harry Truman for dropping the bombs. 

Sometimes one is confronted with the choice between a small evil and a Great Evil, no other choices.

A great many more people, Allied and Japanese, would have perished if the bombs had not been dropped.

[djones520]

I am personally grateful to Harry Truman, Curtis LeMay, Paul Tibbetts (and the rest of the 509th Bomb Group). 

Without the dropping of that bomb, my grandfather - a newly trained paratrooper who had just been assigned to the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne - would have very likely seen some of the earliest action in any invasion of the Japanese home Islands, and being as green as a spring blade of grass, it very likely would have been the last action he saw.  No Grandpa, no DefiantSix's momma.  No DefiantSix's momma, and DefiantSix would have never been here to grace the world with... well with his....

Aw shit, I just wouldn't have been here.

Actually, from what I can tell, the 101st wasn't included in Operation Downfall.  The 11th Airborne was the only one listed in the order of battle.  I'd imagine though that if shit had gone bad, the 101st eventually would have made it's way over there.

[Airwolf]

LynnTheDem  (1000+ posts)       Wed Aug-06-08 04:31 PM
Response to Original message
9. The majority of Americans now believe nuking Japan was the wrong thing to do.
 It was also done on a pack of lies, which survive to this day (such as the infamous myth "dropping nukes on Japan saved insert-number-here American lives!)

It was a war crime.

It was unnecessary.

It was drastically the wrong thing to do.

And we've been doing the wrong thing ever since.

Holy Crap!!!! it still lives. How can one bitch be so stupid and not get their ass beat by anyone with more then 6 brain cells left?

[Wineslob]

According to Weingartner both were partially the result of a dehumanization of the enemy. "[t]he widespread image of the Japanese as sub-human constituted an emotional context which provided another justification for decisions which resulted in the death of hundreds of thousands."[

Gee, I can't imagine why.  

http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/st/~ehimchak/death_march.html

[Lord Undies]

The DUmpmonkeys aren't upset those bombs were dropped 63 years ago.  They could not care less.  

The little goons are upset the USA won the day.  They would prefer the war to have dragged on and on.  That's the way they are.

It's like the midget brains getting all high and mighty about some mythical abortion clinic bombing.  They don't care about the lives the bombing takes.  They are sad about the killings that cannot continue.

[Airwolf]

You just can not believe the shit that flows everyday from the DUmp, yet they gladly post it like its gold over there.

[Red October]

9. The majority of Americans now believe nuking Japan was the wrong thing to do.
 It was also done on a pack of lies, which survive to this day (such as the infamous myth "dropping nukes on Japan saved insert-number-here American lives!)

Dammit!  If only Lynn was around in 1945... SHE could have told us Japan was surrendering unconditionally, despite what their emporer said.  And SHE could have told us a full scale invasion wouldn't have cost quite so many lives.      Nothing bad would have ever happened if only she were around then, and if only we would have listened. 

  These people can't be trusted in war or peace. 

[Chris_]

LynnTheDem  (1000+ posts)       Wed Aug-06-08 04:31 PM
Response to Original message
9. The majority of Americans now believe nuking Japan was the wrong thing to do.
 It was also done on a pack of lies, which survive to this day (such as the infamous myth "dropping nukes on Japan saved insert-number-here American lives!)

It was a war crime.

It was unnecessary.

It was drastically the wrong thing to do.

And we've been doing the wrong thing ever since.

Much better to be slaves under the iron boots of Germany and Japan.

What a freaking idiot.

[Willow]

It was a war crime.

It was unnecessary.

It was drastically the wrong thing to do.

Somedamnbody shudda told that to the Japanese on Dec. 6th. 

[djones520]

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/jfq_pubs/2109.pdf

A great read regarding countering a paper saying that the Atomic Bombing wasn't needed.

[Chris_]

I am personally grateful to Harry Truman, Curtis LeMay, Paul Tibbetts (and the rest of the 509th Bomb Group). 

Without the dropping of that bomb, my grandfather - a newly trained paratrooper who had just been assigned to the 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne - would have very likely seen some of the earliest action in any invasion of the Japanese home Islands, and being as green as a spring blade of grass, it very likely would have been the last action he saw.  No Grandpa, no DefiantSix's momma.  No DefiantSix's momma, and DefiantSix would have never been here to grace the world with... well with his....

Aw shit, I just wouldn't have been here.

Actually, from what I can tell, the 101st wasn't included in Operation Downfall.  The 11th Airborne was the only one listed in the order of battle.  I'd imagine though that if shit had gone bad, the 101st eventually would have made it's way over there.

According to what I've heard and read, the 101st began training for the invasion of Japan on 01 August 1945.  As a division, they were deactivated on 30 November, and as for my grandfather specifically, he was given his walking papers on September 1946 "At the convenience of the Military.  His discharge says that the only medal he earned was the Army of Occupation - Japan medal.  (He was quite happy to get away thus, according to his stories.)

[DumbAss Tanker]

No Americans were killed in atom-bombing the two cities.  One or more would have been in the invasion.  Therefore I'm perfectly OK with it.  They started it, we finished it.

[JohnnyReb]

Apparently the DUmmies don't have any dead limbs in their family trees caused by the Japs. They are a few in mine. ....And Miss "Pac", who lost a son on the Bataan Death March (and one in Europe, and one in Korea), would probably say they didn't drop enough of them soon enough.

As someone else has said, if it had gone on a little longer, I might not be here.

[Splashdown]

It was a war crime.

It was unnecessary.

It was drastically the wrong thing to do.

Somedamnbody shudda told that to the Japanese on Dec. 6th. 

Somebody should also tell her what "war crime" means. 

[jukin]

Stupid + Ignorance = DUchebag.

[Uhhuh35]

My wife's grandparents were at Hiroshima and they say "It had to happen because Japan would have never surrendered". Those are their words.
Though I met her in L.A. my wife is from Okinawa and occasionally we go back there to visit her relatives. As a side note, I was stationed in Okinawa at Kadena AB from 1989-1992. This is her Grandfather dusting his car in front of his home in Okinawa:



Believe it or not he was too small to join the Japanese Army during the war so he put his engineering skills to work helping to design Kamikaze planes. That's what he told us. For most people that's an uncomfortable subject but for me, a lifelong aviation fanatic, it's endlessly fascinating. During our discussions he said that the F6F Hellcat was the American fighter that turned the tide in the pacific, and I agreed. Other times we just watched Sumo and drank beer.
Anyway, the week of the Hiroshima bombing his wife and he attended a military meeting conducted there. Seems the day of the bombing he felt sick and didn't go to the meeting. He just stayed with his wife in their hotel just outside of the city.
Well it just so happened that his wife was outside doing something that morning, saw the plane fly over and then saw the mushroom cloud. The next day he went to Hiroshima and walked through the devastated city. "It was hell on earth", he said.

Here he is with his wife with their grand daughter, my wife.



He never considered the bombing a "war crime" and as far as I could tell didn't hold a grudge against America in any way. He said that America had to do it because the Japanese were never going to surrender.
Even though he took a dose of radiation from Hiroshima he lived to the ripe old age of 93, his wife passing just a short time before him.

Just thought I'd pass on a little factual history from some of the people who lived it and were actually there.

[Airwolf]