President Truman - Why I am Alive Today by Caris

President Truman - Why I am Alive Today by Caris - October 2017 Scholarship Essay

If I could choose to have dinner with any U.S. President I would choose to dine with President Truman, who held office from 1945-1953. President Truman is a controversial choice since he is the president who decided to drop the two A-bombs on Japan, thus ending the Second World War. He is my choice and I am alive today because of his decision.
My grandpa was a seaman in the Navy from 1945-1946. After attending boot camp in May 1945, Papa went to California, boarded a troop ship headed for Pearl Harbor, where the Japanese Invasion Force assembled. Like many ships preparing for the several week voyages to Japanese waters, Papa’s ship had roughly 800 young men straight out of boot camp, very inexperienced and very scared. My grandpa figured he probably would have become a laborer, bringing supplies on and off the ships, and to the base camps, since he had almost no skills with weaponry. This would have made him an easy target. His chance of survival would have been slim.
Right before his ship was to set off, they received word that President Truman gave the order to drop the A-bombs on the two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The war was about to end. They were not needed to fight. This decision became one of the most controversial in U.S. history. President Truman said this on the subject of the bombings, “The atom bomb was no ‘great decision’. It was merely another powerful weapon in the arsenal of righteousness.” In ending the war he took the lives of many innocent Japanese, which was a great tragedy. But he also saved the lives and lineage of countless Americans, like myself and my family.
If my grandpa had gone to the Pacific Theatre, there is a very small chance he would have survived, and I, his granddaughter would have been born. So, if I were to have dinner with President Truman, I would thank him for ending the war and saving my grandpa and thank him for my own existence.