I've told this story on Shag/Surly before but when I was a freshman in college, my history professor had us read (our choice) 3 books and do a paper on each for midterms. My grandmother's 3 brothers all served in the Pacific ( 2 Marines and a Navy SeaBee) so I chose to read some books about the Pacific campaigns, one was on Tarawa. Upon getting the reports back, besides the grade on each was a small note on the Tarawa paper. "Good report. By the way, I was there" was in red ink.
After, I found out that my professor lived in my neighborhood. I was able to have some conversations with him (my Dad also as he served 20 yrs in the Navy) and found out that he rarely talked about his experiences there or other battles, but he did with us. One thing that he said (and has stuck most with me) is that him, his division of Marines, and thousands of other soldiers and sailors were cruising to Japan to be part of the initial invasion when they heard about the bombs and the Japanese surrender.
He distinctly said that he was never so happy. With all that he had previously been through, his time was most likely up and he wasn't going to make it out of Japan without being seriously wounded or most likely killed. He said those 2 bombs saved his life.