がまん-Toughing it Out.

Let’s all take a moment and admire the courage of the workers of the Fukushima nuclear plants. They have been working night and day to try and solve Japan’s nuclear crisis. This is the worst nuclear crisis they’ve seen since World War II.

Japan has been frequently shown donning masks on the news for illnesses and the like in the past and who could blame them? They live in close quarters and disease could spread like wildfire there. This time however they don the masks because of radiation.

Threats of thyroid cancer and potentially worse later on loom over the heads of ordinary citizens living only 3 miles from the reactors. People are told to stay inside and potassium iodide pills, which will help prevent the radiation from affecting thyroids, are being widely distributed. People are saying “it’s not as bad as Chernobyl”, a Russian city that had radiation leakage so bad it contaminated the land so strongly that nothing can grow there today. Still, it could get worse.

In the Fukushima plants workers fight to cool the reactors, praying they can stop the leaking. They’ve taken the path to destroying the future of the reactor to preserve the present. A desperate, yet entirely necessary move. They’ve pumped sea water into the reactors but none of it seems to be working. If they stay much longer death will be imminent, but what choice do they have? If they don’t do it, who will? They’re digging their own grave, to prevent the death toll from rising some more. If that isn’t a hero, I don’t know what is. They’re fighting to preserve the lives of the community, selflessly risking their lives to save them from yet another nuclear disaster. Could you do it? If you were the only one who could save the whole country, but it meant you would probably die, could you do it? I’m not sure I could, but I’d like to think I would. Don’t forget the people like them. I think they should receive the highest honors they can get because there aren’t words for that. I’ll take a pathetic shot and say this,

どもありがとうございます。

Thank you very much.

I have friends in Japan, and these folks are doing all they can to save them. So thank you, thank you so very much.