Remembering local sacrifices to win World War II

President Obama's visit to Hiroshima today was no simple undertaking.

Critics call the visit itself an apology for the atomic bombing 71 years ago, but the president took special pains avoid appearing to apologize for an act that ended the war Japan started with a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

After laying a wreath and bowing his head, Obama reflected on the gravity of the bombing.

"The flash of light and a wall of fire destroyed a city and demonstrated that mankind possessed the means to destroy itself," the president said.

Obama, who somehow won a Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-nuclear agenda, called for a world less threatened by nuclear war.

"Among those nations like my own, that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them," he said.

The irony of atomic weapons is that many of us owe our lives to them -- born to soldiers who might have died in the brutal fighting that would have accompanied an invasion of Japan.

World War II was followed by decades of "proxy" wars from Korea to Vietnam and Afghanistan during a war that was "cold" only because of the threat of mutually-assured nuclear destruction.

An atomic standoff doesn't work with the new threat of Islamic terrorism, suicidal extremists happy to bring as much death and destruction as possible to themselves, their neighbors and families.

But America would do well to revive the resolve that enabled us to work together to win World War II.

Monday's Memorial Day observance will be a good time to remember those who sacrificed everything to give us the freedoms we enjoy today.

Memorial Park Cemetery's ceremony traditionally takes place near a veterans' memorial in the park, and other monuments are in Parkview Cemetery and Norris Park.

But no real downtown monument exists to honor the men and women who served and trained at the McCook Army Air Base, or the community that pulled together to support the war effort.

We don't know that anyone directly involved in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki passed through the McCook base, but planes that dropped both bombs were built in Bellevue, Neb., and B-29s like them were a common sight in Southwest Nebraska skies.

A large monument dedicated to that sacrifice would be a welcome community project.