What Could Have Happened

By Andrew Gauthier

Hey guys! I’m Andrew Gauthier. I live in the lovely town of Farmington, Maine. Living in Farmington is like dancing to no music. Nothing much happens here. The world is actually very peaceful and clean aside from some drunken scuffles in parking lots. You know the deal.

Life wasn’t always this easy. Many years ago this country I live in was at war. I can remember the stories I have read about the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the holocaust as a student. If it weren’t for what happened then, my life might be much different today…

It was the morning of December 7th, 1941. This day marked the end of a quiet peace in the US. In a surprise advancement on the US by Japan, the attacks at Pearl Harbor began taking many lives and causing heavy damage to the US military base.

It was at this time that the US declared it’s active role in World War II. As peace seemed no longer an option with Japan, the US would seek surrender as a result of beginning a campaign in the Pacific waters.

The attacks on Pearl Harbor as well as fear of Nazi Germany were the catalysts responsible for what I know of today as the Manhattan Project. The results of this attempt at the US creation of atomic warheads would prove more fatal to it’s creators than it ever would against the belligerent empire of Japan or Nazi Germany.

A major accident happened at the Trinity test site as a result of the US playing with heavy arms innovations. The day before the first US atomic test at Trinity, the bomb model nicknamed “Fat Man” became unstable. Those present, including J. Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves, perished immediately. The US played with fire and got burnt in the process.

World leaders became astoundingly concerned with what advancements in atomic research would develop for issues in future years. As a result of the documented devastation at Trinity, the Geneva Protocols were amended and now included the ban of atomic weaponry in any situation of military mobilization. This would ultimately end the Manhattan Project and further US experiments in these devastating weapons. No one will ever know how many lives the amendment to the protocols has saved.

Of course, such an event would never cause the enemy to back down. The Pacific campaigns of World War II would rage on and reach US soil only as deep as California and Arizona. Casualties continued to stack up until the US had ample opportunity to drive back Japanese forces. Japanese aircraft fuel was in shortage due to the embargo the US placed on their exports and the Japanese had no other choice but to retreat due to their lack of supplies.

Following shortly after, the US would invade the Japanese east coast and move inland for the capital. After the US set foot on Japanese soil it was only a matter of days before surrender by Japan was inevitable.

Efforts that were thought of as potentially fruitless by the US in turn became the light at the end of the tunnel and the end of the Pacific campaigns of World War II.

As a result of the efforts of my fore-fathers, I am glad to say I am alive and breathing on US soil today. I live in a world where atomic technology is under very close watch and is not permitted to be used as a form of weaponry.

The prolonged use of these sorts of weapons could have resulted in world-wide catastrophe. If it weren’t for the amendments made to theGeneva Protocol, I may not have been able to write this story for you. I

may not have even existed today. Luckily, smart choices have been made by minds of nobility.

Tonight, I know I will sleep easily.

- The End

Sources

http://www.worldwar-2.net/

Day of Trinity, by Lansing Lamont

The United States and World War II, by Robert James Maddox

All images used are in accordance with the Intellectual Property Laws. All photos used, with the exception of photos on slides 2 and 7, are photos taken by US Government subjects and, therefore, are in the Public Domain.

Photo on Slide 2 taken by Melissa Audy.Photo on Slide 7 taken by Aaron Stewart.