Like many people, I’ve heard the stories of Hiroshima second hand -- from teachers, history books, and films. But when Bill, Phillip, and I sat in May and Sam’s living room it struck me that -- while this anniversary is recognized internationally -- it's a private affair for some.

It was hard for Sam to share his story with us but I want to thank him for his courage to sit with his family and listen. In many respects, I think his silence did speak to us. On this anniversary my thoughts are with the families who stay at home living day-to-day lives and trying to forget what happened to them 60 years ago. I hope more stories can be shared because like Naomi said, “It just can’t be a personal story. It has to go beyond that.”

I arrived in Japan in August 1992. I think it was a Tuesday morning. I was driving to work and all of a sudden, all of the cars on the road stopped. I furiously honked my horn to get the traffic going. I was sooo New York. When I got to work, I told my co-workers "That was so weird. All the traffic stopped. The lights changed, but no one moved for like a minute!" "Don't you know?", said one of my co-workers. "Today is the day you dropped the bomb on our country. Every year at exactly the time the bomb drops, we all stop what we are doing for one minute." "Thank's for telling me", I thought, and upon my reflection I realized I had played into the hands of the idea that we Americans remain Neanderthals in terms of our perception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After that, so long as I was in Japan, I made sure that on Hiroshima day, I wasn't anywhere where I could embarass myself or my country -- unwittingly.