Journal 6 Cieria

Dr. Sasaki has been the most interesting character so far with his response to the bombing.  He was the only doctor not hurt at the Red Cross hospital.  He had a great responsibility to take care of the sick and injured before this attack, but it was exponentially greater afterwards.  With the lack of staff and overwhelming number of patients, he still managed to think efficiently as a doctor.  In the text it says that he was no longer a "sympathetic man; he became an automation, mechanically wiping, daubing, winding, wiping, daubing, winding."  In the face of disaster, I think that it is better to lose sympathy if that is what it takes to bring aid to others.  If you dwell too much on all of the misery and heartache, you become like the woman who carried her dead baby around for days.  She was not helping anyone else and was making her own situation much worse.

Red Cross Hospital

  Ideological Subversion has four steps: Demoralization, Destabilization, Crisis, and Normalization.  The demoralization occurred during WWII during the air raids that the Japanese were so used to.  They still believed that their Emperor would be victorious, even though they were constantly being attacked just because of the culture and complete faith in the Emperor.  When the bombs were dropped, it caused destabilization because all sense of safety was taken from the citizens, and they lost so many lives.  Crisis happened when the people of Japan tried to get help after the bomb.  There was disaster and death everywhere, and many had nothing and no one left to call their own.  When the emperor surrendered, it was the start of normalization.  The people of Japan accepted that they had lost the war and knew that their leader would need to accept terms from the winning side.