My feet are stone, reinforced concrete stopping me from taking another step up into this beautiful church. I wonder how many Japanese churches - Shinto shrines -  I have destroyed.  How many Buddhas incinerated? How many innocent worshippers gone because of me? Do I really belong here in this church? NO!  Of course not, not after what you did to us!  Maybe I should go down the street to the pub instead on this frigid morning.  My nerves are failing me… but I continue up the steps and into the church, and hope, that god can forgive me. He can't, he won’t.

The worn wooden pews are empty; the sound of the church door is echoing endlessly in my head, and the crucifix with the statue of Jesus is giving a look full of scorn and pity. Pity, you are too low for pity, and even you know it.  I am thinking about leaving when an old silver-haired woman walks out of the confessional across from me.  Her wrinkled face is tear stained. Does her sin compare to mine? Is a sin a sin, none more or less in the eyes of God?  My legs are moving without my consent, carrying me to the confessional.  Inside the doubled-doored cabinet, god’s private meeting room, it is dark and so cold.  All I can see is a faint outline of the priest behind the wall.

“Forgive me father for I have sinned, I am a murderer, more than a hundred thousand Japanese souls cry out against me, women, children, old men.  I am a soldier who bombed a city of innocent lives, not a Japanese army.  I can still remember that day.

Our twelve person crew was flying on the Enola Gay, a big-nosed Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber.   Paul was piloting, and me, I am a bombardier. We flew in under the clouds, and I could see the large city of Hiroshima about thirty thousand feet below us.  When we were directly over the city, I released Little Boy, the bomb I was told would end the war. Less than a minute later we heard what sounded like hell itself explode. The flash of light was so unbelievably bright, like the sun above us had suddenly burst below us. Our plane actually shook from the force of the blast. That was the moment when I thought out loud, ‘what the hell did we just do?’”

“My son,” the priest responds, “God understands that an honorable soldier who is following orders from his superiors, his country, sometimes hurts the innocent. God sees your good heart and hears your guilt-ridden cries and forgives you. Go in peace.”

“Peace? Peace? I have no peace. I dream about it night after night.  I relive what I have done, I know I had to do it, I know I had to end the war, I know I had to, even if I had known what was going to happen, I was ordered to do it.  People call me a hero, but do heroes kill thousands and thousands of civilians? I'm not a hero, I’m a monster.  Can a monster be forgiven, can mankind be forgiven for thinking up such a destructive tool?  Maybe not.  Maybe we are all guilty.”

After a moment of silence, the priest replies.“God has forgiven you, but you haven't forgiven yourself.”

“How can I forgive myself when the souls that haunt me won’t let me?”

“Have you ever asked them for forgiveness?”

Half an hour later I find myself on a bar stool at the pub.  The bartender recognizes me and buys the hero an ice cold beer.  Hey, I know it must be hard to forgive, and there is no way that I’ll ask you all to forget, but will you forgive me?  So I can forgive myself?  I ask silently to every person in the city of Hiroshima.  

“I would like to have a toast!”  I yell before I can stop myself, surprised when the loud pub suddenly quiets. “To being a hero, to the end of war, and to all those who were lost. ”  I continue..I take a swig of the beer along with everyone else.  The cold ale washes down my throat, quenching my thirst, and my soul.

-Elisha Savage