what would the aged strager say about the atomic bomb?

I find Twain’s account of a pre-war celebration and victory prayer very comical. It’s funny how the “aged stranger” was seen as a lunatic for what he preached when he was probably just misunderstood. I admit that he does sound very confusing at times and I guess he would seem a bit weird to me if I were to have heard his rant in 1905, but he does manage to get his point across. When the man goes into his version of the second part of the prayer and he prays for all those negatively associated unspoken facts of war he’s really sort of pointing out the truth, somewhat bluntly and untimely but the truth. I believe he does this because he was probably just trying to get his point across about the horrors of war to the people who were celebrating it with a parade (and some tears). I think it was more of his own protest to the war and he did it in a very funny way by concluding at the end with “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak!” after mentioning all the negative prayers.
For some reason I think perhaps he was a civil war veteran? I don’t think he was a lunatic, maybe a bit senile but not a lunatic.
On Atomic bombs:
Although I regard the use of nuclear weapons as disastrous to our world and a ghastly to use against an enemy now-a-days, I think that it was justified to drop the two bombs on Japan during World War II. It was justified at the time due to the situation the US was in. It saved hundreds of thousands of American lives and prevented countless other losses.
Fussell mentions that the US estimated 200,000 lives would be lost in an attempt to invade Japan’s beaches which was the entire number of men at the beaches of Normandy. So I can imagine the casualties of invading Japan’s final island could have been even worse than that of Normandy’s.
He mentions that without the two atomic bombs the Japanese would not have retreated without an incredible amount of bloodshed. They were ready to fight with ever last breadth of life in their bodies to defend their honor. Fussell also mentions that the Japanese were not seriously considering a retreat until the second bomb was dropped. Thus ultimately although the bombs were extremely destructive, they achieved their goal without spending the lives of countless more allied soldiers.
I agree with Fussell in that the Japanese would not have retreated. Think about it, if they were ready to commit suicide by bombing our ships with their planes in order to stop us, they were definitely going to try more drastic measures to defend their homeland. It really had to take something that drastic for the Japanese to retreat with no sense of dishonor.