My name is Sunao Tsuboi, and I was born on May 5th 1921. I was born in Hiroshima and grew up with my parents and brothers. I'm the fourth of five brothers. As a student I was very modest, but I was good at studying. I was a class leader too. Because I really liked math and science I wanted to become an inventor. I tried to become one until the war happened. I was ten years old when the war started with China. My two eldest brothers went to war there and never came back. Then when I was sixteen years old the war against America began, and our school introduced military classes into our educational system. We were told to not study English and to not use English words. We couldn't even use words like "baseball" and had to use Japanese replacement instead. During my senior year I had to switch my music classes to marching classes. Everything I learned was related to the military and to the war. Boys over twelve years of age had to learn how to shoot guns; they would go to shooting ranges to practice. The Japanese government controlled every school, including the universities. We were taught that we all eventually would have to go into the field to fight the enemy for Japan, for the country.
When military education first started in school, I was really frustrated. I couldn't do what I wanted to do, and I believed my dreams had perished. But gradually my feelings changed. I began to feel the spirit of loving this country. I wanted to go into the war and fight to protect Japan. Because I grew up with all brothers, I was usually around men and our priority when talking was always the war. We talked about going to the field and fighting the enemy. My friends and peers, we always thought this way. My college mate was called to go to war. On the day he was dispatched we all came together to cheer him up. Some of us gave him messages on cloth. At that time, I cut my finger and with my own blood wrote something like, "I will follow you so you will be successful." It was a normal thing to do back then. Fortunately my friend came back from the war and lived a long life.
Before the a-bomb exploded, the connection between people and their town, especially between their neighbors, was really close and tight. While the men were at war, women and girls stayed home protecting our towns and cities. All of the men were dispatched to the war so they had to do things men usually have to do. They would get together and form women's groups to help each other with farming, business, and everything else like putting out fires. We helped each other and were well coordinated, but after the a-bomb people became more self-centered. In a sense, it was to survive, to live, but socially there became a lack of togetherness.
On the day of the bombing I was on my way to the university. I was twenty years old and a senior. I was walking when suddenly I saw a flash, a big explosion, and I fainted. When I awoke I was ten meters from where I was walking, and I didn't know what to do.
I could still see the mushroom of clouds over my head. I couldn't see a hundred meters in front of me; it was all smoke. I looked down at myself and was shocked because my arms and legs were bloodied, and my clothes were all torn. I began walking when I felt this ache in my back. I took off my jacket and saw that it was burning. I was walking for about twenty minutes with a fire on my back.
While I was running I saw a lot of people injured from the explosion. I saw a lady with no eyes; they were pulled out from her eye sockets. I also saw a guy with his stomach out of his body. I saw dead people all around me. It was worse than hell. I was injured myself, but at that moment I only thought about how I hated the enemy and how I would get revenge. Gradually my body weakened and I shut down on the corner of a street. I thought I might be dying. My feelings changed from strong desire to revenge to desperation, I thought I am going to die any second. I even scribbled it down on the road: "I die here."
I just stayed there until a military truck came. A guy stepped out and said, " Okay, only young men can get on this truck." Women, children, and the elderly could not. They were seen as garbage and only young men were seen as important. I became really mad at this idea. The government's only concern was to win or lose the war, and human beings were just tools. I wanted to say to the military guy that everyone is the same and we are all human beings... I wanted to fight him but my body was too weak so I couldn't do anything. There was a girl, about six or seven years old, who wanted to get on the truck. She wanted to survive but was told to get off. I wanted to say something but I just couldn't. So she got off and ran crying into the fields that were still on fire. I hope she survived. I still remember the fact that I couldn't' help her, and I felt so guilty. I really hated the military and the war at that moment.
After the incident, I was sent to Enoshima Island. They had a military hospital there so I was able to escape from the ghost town of Hiroshima. There weren't many nurses in the hospital so victims just lay on their beds dying. Something like eighty percent of people were dying everyday so everyday I thought it was going to be my turn to die.
One day my mother and uncle came to the island searching for me. They couldn't find me and at that moment my mother insanely cried my name, "Sunao! Sunao! Sunao!" I was almost dead when I heard my mother, and I unconsciously raised my hand. In that way I was miraculously saved. I was unconscious for fourteen days after that so I didn't even know that the war was over. When I came back to consciousness I was home and my mother was looking at me. I said, " I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be fighting the enemy; take me back so I can fight." My mother told me the war was over but I couldn't believe it. I thought it all false. That's how brainwashed I was from the Japanese militarism.
With the war over I didn't have much energy for jobs, but eventually I chose to become a teacher. I found a job teaching eight hours a week at a school for women. I began to teach there, and in the end I found my wife. I was about twenty-six years old, and she was a student. I really wanted to marry her, but her parents were very opposed because I was a hibakusha. That was the term for survivors of the atomic bomb. They thought I was going to die in two or three years, and then she would be a widow. So they kept her in the house so that I couldn't see her. When she wanted to go out she had to go with a female friend, but then I would meet her. Our love was so strong that we decided to commit suicide together with sleeping pills. Maybe in heaven we could marry. But the amount of pills we took was not enough. I woke up when she was still sleeping so I was going to take another pill but then she woke up too. We were so sad because we couldn't even die together. It was the saddest moment.
Since the war I've been hospitalized twelve times. Out of those twelve, doctors have told me three times that I wouldn't live, but with the help of everyone I have survived, and I have even had cancers cured. I carry medications with me, and I still go to the hospital every two weeks for drug infusions, but I'm alive. Since I can't die I have to live. I've survived to tell people that the life of human beings- not nukes, not war, not terrorism, not murder - is the most important thing. I'm here and alive to convey that message.
