Visit to Hiroshima Peace Park somber, surreal - The Oxford Eagle

Visit to Hiroshima Peace Park somber, surreal - The Oxford Eagle

By Gene Hays MSgt, USMC (Ret) In the winter of 1973 I visited the “A Bomb Dome,” part of “Peace Park” in Hiroshima when I was a member of a squadron in the 1st Marine Corps Aircraft Wing, located in Iwakuni, Japan, about 60 kilometers to the south of Hiroshima. The same day some school kids also visited the park. It was a surreal feeling, milling about with Japanese tourists, realizing the horrific loss of life, and yet everyone smiling, and kid…