Today we struggle with COVID-19, climate change, sectarianism, inequalities,…..yet compared to 75 years ago (specifically August 6, 1945), perhaps our desiderata could be better understood from the lessons of war .
John Hersey was an exemplary journalist with fine personal attributes. He wrote – “….if civilization is to mean anything, people have to acknowledge the humanity of their enemies.” His heroic description ‘Hiroshima’ stands as the 20th C model for ‘new journalism’, an unadorned, plain-speak style that displayed devastating facts in narrative form.
Our USA has problems to solve, healthcare and beyond. Legacies of WWII now imbedded within medicine are briefly summarized by Barr and Podolsky (attached). Largest single impact (p. 614 3rd column) was the Stabilization Act of 1942. Wage freezes led employers (unable to provide higher salaries to attract employees) to offer health insurance as a fringe benefit, thereby launching employer-sponsored health insurance,….and generative of today’s population health failures (partly).
Operation Warp Speed (attached) is remarkable, something we can be proud of,……rapid, safe development of several SARS-CoV-2 vaccines driven by a commitment to cooperative science, funding, manufacturing, roll-out,……there will be glitches and controversy, but the magnitude of this 2020 ‘Manhattan Project’ is wondrous.
Back to John Hersey – if there is a more impeccable first sentence in the history of writing, you’ll have to show me:
At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning on August 6, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.
Joe Kaempf, MD
District VIII Member Extraordinaire
Portland, OR
Volume 12, Number 7