Okinawa veterans' sympathy for the atomic victims was greatly lessened by their conviction that the alternative would have been their own deaths or crippling injuries. Certain of that, they'd feel pity, contempt, or anger — most of which would turn to resignation over the years — for noncombatants who later branded the bomb's use as unnecessary and immoral. Their gut told them there was no other way but to kill the Japanese, that all the rest was talk, that no one could understand — because it was otherwise incomprehensible — unless he'd fought the singular enemy.
