Hiroshima Day.

• Author: Mitchell, Greg
• Position: Planning American commemorations of the atomic bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagaski in 1945

America is in a commemorative mood. The recent D-Day ceremonies captured the attention of the entire nation. Soon we will mark the fiftieth anniversary of many other World War II milestones, from the fall of Berlin to the liberation of the concentration camps. The U.S. military's sweep across the Pacific will be memorialized at Leyte Gulf and the Philippines, on Iwo Jima and Okinawa. But these occasions, unlike those related to the war against Hitler, will be haunted by awareness of what comes next: Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The stories of the American soldiers who invaded Normandy were deeply moving. There were tens of thousands of these GIs; they fought with unreliable, low-tech weapons; they killed only soldiers on the other side.

Now consider Hiroshima: one bomb, one plane, 100,000 civilians dead. It will be interesting to see what America--the media, the President, the average citizen--makes of this contrast next summer.

The truth is, America has never come to terms with the atomic bombings, so some soul-searching is not only desirable, it's unavoidable. It will be a time for taking stock, for reflecting on the fact that half a century ago something revolutionary happened and it changed everything. No matter what we think of Hirosima, it has affected us deeply.

This wrenching reexamination, in fact, has already begun. For years, technicians at the National Air and Space Museum have been reassembling the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the bomb over Hiroshima. Next year they will finally put the front section of the B-29 on display. To its credit, the Smithsonian Institution (which runs the museum) plans a comprehensive exhibit that includes not only the bomber but the bomb victims.

The show hasn't even opened and already it's drawing flak. This reveals how raw the wound remains. A group of Air Force veterans have seen a copy of the proposal for the show and are "feeling nuked," as Hugh Sidey tastelessly put it in Time magazine not long ago. Sidey's remark itself shows how completely most Americans have insulated themselves from Hiroshima.

The Enola Gay exhibit will feature a Ground Zero room, reproducing a wasteland of rubble, ruins, and heat-fused material. This is the usual Hiroshima landscape and generally upsets no one; among other things, it testifies to the success of the mission. But this Ground Zero goes a step further, including in the panorama charred bodies and items belonging to dead schoolchildren.

The veterans complain...