Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century are Madness – US Veteran

Using nuclear weapons in the 21st century would be insane and destroy all life on Earth, US Air Force veteran Jerry Yellin told in an interview with RIA Novosti.

On August 14, 1945, Yellin participated in the last air battle of World War II.

The veteran admitted that if then, in 1945, he had been selected he would have dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But today he would never do that.

"For me, there was no difference between a thousand of bombers dropping a conventional bomb and just one plane dropping this one [nuclear bomb]," he said as quoted by RIA Novosti.

"The bombings saved my life and the lives of many, many millions of Japanese citizens. They preferred to repel the invasion, and everyone in Japan was ready to die in action. Thus the two nuclear bombs contributed to reaching peace. They saved my life because we planned an invasion to the Kyushu Island and expected numerous casualties. But it didn’t happen. So I was happy that we dropped the bombs and win the war," Yellin explained.

The veteran pointed out that as far as he knows, the elder Japanese also believe that the bombings might have saved their lives.

When he was told that Russian people consider the bombings unjustified because Japan was already close to capitulation, the veteran answered: "It’s nothing but an assumption. We will never know exactly. All I know is that we dropped thousands of conventional bombs and the two bombs that were 1,000 times deadlier. And we made it, we won the war, and my life was saved. I came back home."

The fact that nowadays many world powers possess nuclear weapons is a plain insanity, the former Air Force captain stated.

"I’m absolutely against nuclear war. We must not have such weapons. We must not have the idea of dropping nuclear bombs on our enemies. Mankind should unite to save everyone’s life. I would tell everyone that we cannot be those who we think we are. We cannot be Americans, Russians, Jews, Muslims or Christians. We are mankind," Yellin was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

"We’re going by the same plane. We mustn’t drop the bomb. Modern weapons are too deadly, and the arms race would destroy everything on the planet," he concluded.