Note: The following addresses a sensitive issue with mention of historical and some political references to give context. This post is deeply serious and is my heartfelt view concerning the Christian spirit.
In 1976, after assuring the FBI that I was not a communist, and cooperating with endless requests for information, I was given a classified security clearance. I was still a Jehovah's Witness, but this was only a marginal concern to the authorities at the time. When I joined the JW religion in 1968 it caused my brother some problems with his own security clearance. He served as a spy for the US government. He was finally able to get my religious involvement resolved and kept his clearance.
I worked in the civilian development of nuclear energy as an electrical engineer. I supported and conducted both destructive and not destructive tests of equipment used in nuclear power plants. This level of research and development was necessary to have equipment that can operate in an accident environment and safely shut down a commercial nuclear reactor.
In one assignment, I provided consulting services to Westinghouse, the Hanford Area general operating company. The forerunner of the Department of Energy was known as the "Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA)" which had general federal oversight of Hanford. Westinghouse sent me out to a now declassified area called 200 West.
The 200 Area site was then a nuclear waste center. Various radioactive by-product materials, like Cesium and Strontium, must be maintained in metal/concrete storage tanks. These chemicals are constantly stirred and treated to keep them from catching fire or breaching the tanks. My job was to provide design support for new security systems to prevent people from entering the area and attempting theft of radioactive materials or sabotage. I also provided design support to improve the alarm system from the tanks to the control center so that operators could have better warning than the 1940s style light bulb glowing at the top of the tanks. I marveled at these by-products from an age gone by ... products that will be there for a long time to come, unless the clean-up programs have taken care of them. Somehow, knowing the pace of our government, I doubt that this clean up has progressed very far.
Then comes the strangest site of all. I enter 200 West for the first time. I am given the usual tour and introductions are made with managers and fellow professionals. During the tour, I am asked if I want to see the room where "it" all happened. I agreed and asked what "it" was. My manager informed me that the large area room, with a railroad bay, was where the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was built. The bay was perhaps 75 yards long and about 50 yards wide, or nearly the size of a football field. I studied the dimly lit large cavern-like bay, and the upper level gangway where various monitoring stations sat empty and lifeless. I touched the old fashioned phones used in 1945. They were still in good condition and useable. The large dial monitors for measuring the environment and radiation impressed me. It was all still as it stood in 1945, like a museum, except its workers were all long gone. As I talked with the manager, our voices echoes up and down the bay.
It was here that I first studied the Bible with some Christians, though I was still a JW. As they prayed together, I did not say amen, because of my Watchtower conscience. But I did not yet value them as I should have done and now do. But, looking back, I realize that this was a significant piece of history, a place where people constructed a device that would kill 100,000 people, men, women, and children. This place is where the first atomic bomb rolled out to the death and horrible destruction of so many.
What can we say? I cannot go back and judge the sense of justice or determination of the US to engage the Japanese Empire. The Japanese were hard and brutal and killed so many people by means of torture. It does seem ironic to me that the nation whose flag was a symbol of the sun, was itself burned by a force tens times hotter than the sun. Some will argue that if the atomic bomb was not used that millions more would die on both sides, as the Japanese were training women and children to fight any invasion force. Others will strongly argue that there was no excuse for using such a horrendous weapon. I don't know how to discuss such things anymore, so I can only relate my feelings in a different way.
War is beyond argument. I feel that to argue who started a war, who had to right to defend themselves, that children and innocent people on both sides were killed, or any revisionist historical claims are truly missing the point for Christians. No, the issue goes to why humans engage in war to this day, and have not found within their own humanity a better way to solve their differences.
The problem with noble statements about hating war is that there is an even deeper concern. Some wars are started not as acts of preemptive defense, or because of unresolved differences. Many times, wars are brought to us because of the perverse lust for power and control over others. We certainly see such extreme examples in the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and others.
This brings us to an even more troublesome contradiction. Do we as Christians find there are times when it is justified to engage in war to defeat those whose only drive is lust for victory and power? Or, do we stand down, turn the other cheek, and beg God for a miracle that will end the madness. The only thing I can do for now is stand down as a Christian - but, to not judge those whose conscience demands that at times good people must rise up and do something to stop those who would kill everyone in their path.
Jim Whitney