Posted on 04/27/2020 8:41:20 AM PDT by FreedomNotSafety
Greatest Generation, meet the latest generations. The United States is in the grips of a global pandemic unlike anything ever experienced by baby boomers, Gen Xers, millennials, Gen Z, or whatever you prefer to call the descendants of the G.I. Joes and Rosie the Riveters who fought, each in their own way, to save democracy and preserve freedom.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Drives me nuts how the corona numbers come out context free. Then I hear the economic comparisons to WW2, about how all the spending can work out just as well. Literally the money spent in WW2 was to get people working to blow up our competitors ability to manufacture, and we won, of course it worked out. Now we’re paying people to stay home, not even close to the same.
I was able to get some details out of my dad, uncles and family friends who served by asking pointed questions based on all of the books I had read (I have been a WW2 history nut since I was a little kid).
One of our dear family friends, Virgil, was hit by an artillery shell in western France and laid in a ditch for 2 days unconscious with a severe leg injury and was discovered alive when the graves detail came by and found him. He never walked normally again. This experience is not like that.
My uncle Herman, who won two Silver Stars for his service in the European theatre, still had PTSD episodes into his late seventies. He would try and strangle my aunt in his sleep because he had to choke out a Nazi that had jumped in his foxhole to bayonet him in his sleep when his fox hole mate fell asleep. His fox hole mate did not come back. This experience is not like that.
This is a rough time. A college friend of a friend who I still see occasionally, lost his dad to Covid last week. He was lucky enough to be with his dad when he passed but found out about an hour later that his dad had the virus. Instead of grieving with family and planning a funeral (which no one gets to do right no) he drove to his hunting cabin in the Sandhills of Nebraska to spend his 14 day quarantine alone.
That is a tough deal but in no way compares to what the guys in WW2 went through. Two of my dad’s good friends that he played football with in high school never came home. One is in France and the other is in the church cemetery. I was lucky that my Dad came home from the South Pacific. He served in the Navy and made it through without a scratch. He left the day after graduation for basic and did not come home until 1946. This is not like that.
“...and testified at war crimes trials for some of the Japanese officers involved in administering the POW camps...”
I had an older colleague who survived the Bataan Death March and subsequent imprisonment for the duration of the war. Upon their liberation they skipped the trials and went directly to beating their more brutal guards to death...while the liberators had a couple smokes and a few beers.
7 great uncles fought. I have the Purple Heart of the one KIA . The rest were all decorated with silver or bronze. They fought and died to preserve our freedom. I won’t visit their graves this year unless it is to apologize.
A family member had a Millennial post on their Facebook account about how COVID was this generations Great Depression. I responded with “yeah I guess sitting at home, being paid by the government while you have to determine what food service you are ordering for lunch and what you are going to watch on Netflix surely compares to a time when you had to live in a makeshift shack with your entire family with literally nothing to eat or feed you children while you desperately searched for a job that paid ten cents a day. Yes I can see the similarities...” I was met with considerable rebuke...
Then again, America murders over 2,000 of the most vulnerable souls a day (2017: https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states), while (for perspective) about 90 people die each day in the US from crashes, which are among the over 7,000 Americans who die every day in the US from a wide range of causes. (https://www.weisspaarz.com/leading-causes-death-by-state/)
And while Covid-19 is not the flu, the CDC estimates that influenza has resulted in between 9 million – 45 million illnesses, between 140,000 – 810,000 hospitalizations and between 12,000 – 61,000 deaths in America annually since 2010 (between 61,000 to 80,000 Americans died during the 2017-2018 season).
Yet the issue is why did we not see a comparative proportionate response to the Asian flu with its est. 500 million infection WW and 1–4 million deaths and 116,000 (according to the CDC) deaths in America, when the population was about half what it is today? And about 100,000 deaths in America from the Hong Kong flu?
And now a study of infected prison inmates in four states found that up to 96% are asymptomatic .
PS. thanks for posting the article, but you may want to know that of "excerpt only" articles (not sure if your source is) , you can post 300 words (or half of short articles) if you hit Excerpt when posting, and by which you can provide the essence of the article and saves us time amid all the stories in the article feed. Online word count here .
They may yet get their wish...
They were great, but not the greatest. Don’t fall for that liberal Tom Brokaw stuff - where FDR is a god, and Hitler is the only bogeyman who ever existed and did horrible things.
They ushered in FDR and the nail in the coffin for socialism, and raised the WORST generation thanks to falling all over Dr. Spock.
Cannot possibly be “greatest” when that already existed during the Revolution.
Except for first responders (including fewer LEOs, unfortunately, than I would have expected/hoped for), front-line medical workers and outspoken critics of the continuing deadly overreaction to the Chinese Virus, there is little bravery and honor among the general populace.
It is becoming apparent that the cure for the deadly overreaction is the rapidly accelerating frustration with living under an oppressive government and the impatience of Americans to resume their lives, although even this snowballing effect is being adversely impacted by a significant number of citizens who remain in abject terror of what their elected politicians and, of course, of what "The Experts" continue to promote to benefit themselves.
100%, great post.
I believe my excerpt summed up the article nicely and supported the point I wished to make. I’m not an editor.
Sounds good to me.
Spot on!!
Trump should tweet that pic.
I agree. I am of the generation (silent) that was alive during The War but too young to participate.(But just right for Korea, Viet Nam, Cold War.) The succeeding generations ...boomers
and their scions have left much to be desired. IMHO I think the pivotal point in our downfall was the election of Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964. But as bad as that was, Obama was far worse and god forbid a Hillary and/or Biden victory would finish us off.
I will relay another story about the Philippines.
A friend in Seattle told me this story(he has a Hispanic last name so I assumed he was from Mexico). He grew up in Guam. His father was in the military. His grandmother went there to Guam after the war. Grandma still hated the Japs for what they did to her family & friends during the invasion of the Philippines.
She grew up in a rural area of the country. Her parents were fairly wealthy. Her mother and father were in charge of the local school system. When the Japs came in they rounded up the community leaders(her parents) and chopped their HEADS OFF in front of the whole community including their children. She and the rest of kids were sent to orphanages. They lost everything, including some of their lives.
My friend in Seattle and his siblings/cousins are in year three of trying to get back the land which formerly was owned by his great grandparents. Some is still jungle/undeveloped. Some was taken over by squatters who now lay claim to it.
This is just one WWII story.
FYI, my father fought in New Guinea and the Philippines in the Army Air Corp under Douglas MacArthur(or as he called him Dug Out Doug). My dad was there for the invasion of Luzon. He was there when Doug said “I have returned”. My father came home on a hospital ship. He was shot twice and had all of his upper teeth knocked out.
I’ve been going to the office every day and haven’t “enjoyed” the 8 week taxpayer funded vacation that millions are in the middle of experiencing. I also get to run around the city fixing our infrastructure.
I guess I’m more of the “French Resistance” in WW2? /s
was truly remarkable, but as a group they were terrible at raising their children.
My parents were part of the Greatest Generation and they taught me what life was about and responsibility! If it was not for them I would not be able to think on my own, etc.
What a joke.
My government told me to not go to church, not travel, to not attend a political rally, that I would not be able to vote, that I could not go to the doctor, but in return they will give me money and give my employer a loan. In the meantime the people I am supposedly protecting will draw a full government check.
And this is supposed to be my WW2?
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