Victor Davis Hanson

The more of his writings I read the more impressed I become,Powerline has linked to some NRO archives of his that are absolute must reads,a four part series that is the preface to his book "The Ripples of Battle"covering his namesake on Okinawa in July 1945.He is a fabulous writer and I fought tears while reading it. This book just jumped to the head of my must read list as a lover of history and its implications on the future it is a must read for me at least.

"The new column by Victor Davis Hanson at NRO is in contemplation of the anniversary of Hiroshima: "Hirooshima sixty years later." If you've read Hanson's Ripples of Battle, you know there is a personal element to Hanson's reflections on the subject. The bomb was not dropped in time to save his familial namesake. The introduction to the book dramatically reconstructs his namesake's story in heartbreaking detail (click here, here, here and here)."

PS:Read the last four in order.

"Just as Grant and his generals woke up from Shiloh on April 8 to a new world, so did Americans on September 12. In a blink the old idea of easy retaliation by using cruise missiles or saber-rattling press conferences seems to have vanished. With the end of that mirage, the two-decade fear of losing a single life to protect freedom and innocent civilians also disappeared. Past ideas of restraint, once thought to be mature and sober, were now in an instant revealed more to be reckless in their naïveté and derelict by their disastrous consequences. In the years to come we may well see far more nightmarish things in our military arsenal than bunker-busters and daisy-cutters. Americans once feared to retaliate against random bombings; terrorists now wonder when we will stop — as the logic of September 11 methodically advances to its ultimate conclusion. Aroused democracies reply murderously to enemy assaults in a manner absolutely inconceivable to their naïve attackers"

From the 4th part.