Truman @ the Atomic Bomb

Information about the Atomic Bomb began to flow in. It had been a well kept secret. President Harry Truman made the final decision to drop the bomb. It was estimated that if we invaded Japan that 2 million Japanese would be killed and possibly that many U.S. troops. At that time we had nearly 10 million citizens enrolled in the military. Pictures of the Japanese surrender aboard a battleship in Tokyo began to be published. The war was over, and the warlords had begun killing themselves - Hari Kari with a knife to the abdomen. Truman always said he never regretted dropping the bomb. I agreed with him. I had signed up for the duration and six months and now I was eligible for discharge. I started toward home after receiving my discharge at Fort Bliss in El Paso. I did not know what my next move would be. On the way home I stopped at a bank in New Mexico and asked if I could float a loan to bring some cattle into the state. The banker asked me to wait a few minutes while he checked with a widow who owned a large ranch. This widow had a young daughter who was eligible for marriage. I waited and he talked to the widow on the telephone. He returned shaking his head. It seems the girl had married the hired hand only two days before. I do not know what the girl looked like but I came back to Texas to resume my career. After thinking it over I decided against resuming my ranch operations. Instead I went to work as a reporter on my home town newspaper, The San Angelo Standard Times. This led to other changes in my lifestyle.