Posted on 03/24/2020 4:46:37 PM PDT by foundedonpurpose
I talked with a man today, an 80+ year old man. I asked him if there was anything I can get him while this Coronavirus scare was gripping America. He simply smiled, looked away and said: "Let me tell you what I need! I need to believe, at some point, this country my generation fought for... I need to believe this nation we handed safely to our children and their children... I need to know this generation will quit being a bunch of sissies...that they respect what they've been given...that they've earned what others sacrificed for." I wasn't sure where the conversation was going or if it was going anywhere at all. So, I sat there, quietly observing. "You know, I was a little boy during WWII. Those were scary days. We didn't know if we were going to be speaking English, German or Japanese at the end of the war. There was no certainty, no guarantees like Americans enjoy today. And no home went without sacrifice or loss. Every house, up and down every street, had someone in harm's way. Maybe their Daddy was a soldier, maybe their son was a sailor, maybe it was an uncle. Sometimes it was the whole damn family...fathers, sons, uncles... Having someone, you love, sent off to war...it wasn't less frightening than it is today. It was scary as Hell. If anything, it was more frightening. We didn't have battle front news. We didn't have email or cellphones. You sent them away and you hoped...you prayed. You may not hear from them for months, if ever. Sometimes a mother was getting her son's letters the same day Dad was comforting her over their child's death. And we sacrificed. You couldn't buy things. Everything was rationed. You were only allowed so much milk per month, only so much bread, toilet paper. EVERYTHING was restricted for the war effort. And what you weren't using, what you didn't need, things you threw away, they were saved and sorted for the war effort. My generation was the original recycling movement in America. And we had viruses back then...serious viruses. Things like polio, measles, and such. It was nothing to walk to school and pass a house or two that was quarantined. We didn't shut down our schools. We didn't shut down our cities. We carried on, without masks, without hand sanitizer. And do you know what? We persevered. We overcame. We didn't attack our President, we came together. We rallied around the flag for the war. Thick or thin, we were in it to win. And we would lose more boys in an hour of combat than we lose in entire wars today." He slowly looked away again. Maybe I saw a small tear in the corner of his eye. Then he continued: "Today's kids don't know sacrifice. They think a sacrifice is not having coverage on their phone while they freely drive across the country. Today's kids are selfish and spoiled. In my generation, we looked out for our elders. We helped out with single moms who's husbands were either at war or dead from war. Today's kids rush the store, buying everything they can...no concern for anyone but themselves. It's shameful the way Americans behave these days. None of them deserve the sacrifices their granddads made. So, no I don't need anything. I appreciate your offer but, I know I've been through worse things than this virus. But maybe I should be asking you, what can I do to help you? Do you have enough pop to get through this, enough steak? Will you be able to survive with 113 channels on your tv?" I smiled, fighting back a tear of my own...now humbled by a man in his 80's. All I could do was thank him for the history lesson, leave my number for emergency and leave with my ego firmly tucked in my rear. I talked to a man today. A real man. An American man from an era long gone and forgotten. We will never understand the sacrifices. We will never fully earn their sacrifices. But we should work harder to learn about them..learn from them...to respect them.
I worked with a Korean War vet of that vintage years ago. He served at Chosin. I tried to get him to tell me some stories during our lunch break pow wows but all I ever got was “man, it was cold!”
And he is totally correct. Americans are mostly worse than sissies.
There is hardly a person left born before 1930. What they learned and how it was isnt being taught anymore. What a shame. Without them and their lessons we are nothing but a nation of spoiled, weakling, whiners.
They knew hard times, struggle and sacrifice. We still know none of these. We are a nation of hand wriging, litigous, greedy, cowards.
The folks I was talking about were born in the 30’s.
They did Rock and Roll OK. Not so good at politics.
They were, as they are called, silent. Very overrun by their children, the boomers.
So this is made up...by you?
One of the best posts...I’ve ever seen you post.
Ditto all that!!
People who were born in the 1930s, were, most TOO OLD when Rock & Roll came into popularity to be interested in/caught up it. They were well into their adulthood,married,most had children, and the mid-later '50s were rife with strikes and other things that they had to worry about.
Also, they were born before the idiocies of Dr. Spock took hold, so were NOT raised like most BOOMERS were, but rather, they had grown up during the depression and WW II and knew what deprivation, rationing, etc. were like.
HOW OLD ARE YOU?
Please answer my query, since you are so interested in trashing other generations, which one can take credit for your birth?
It is a silly, pulp, letter written to send around to old people.
If you need a motivational piece of propaganda to make you support the US, what are you missing in your life?
The fact that they present as “from an 80 year old” it is simply a writing tool to evoke schmaltzy emotion.
I guess it did it’s job.
Thank you. See my post 21. My grandparents dealt with the Spanish flu of 1918. They would be ashamed of how America is dealing with the coronavirus. I know I am ashamed.
“People should remember that not all 80 + year old people are like “Mr Dementia Patient of The Year”...joe “Who am I?” biden.”
Definitely not. However, VERY few 80+ year olds (or most any other age for that matter) are able to deliver a spontaneous soliloquy that reads as though a literature major spent 3 hours wordsmithing it.
YEP we used to have very you g men storming the beaches of Normandy NOW our young men are storming the toilet paper isles DEMANDING the clerks get them TP!!!
I am far more ashamed than you are I am completely devastated at how our nation is behaving!!
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Corn Pop will plagiarize it for his next, “briefing” if the teleprompter is up and running.
WE, whom argue and debate politics and have the insight God allows us.
WE, whom offer solutions to problems that shouldn't exist in the first place.
WE, whom know there is an entity responsible for the destruction of American rugged individualism.
WE, whom do nothing about changing or shutting down public school.
SCHOOL used to be, and should be a place of learning for a child to become a successful and productive member of American society. Instead, we've allowed public school to breed the likes of bernie sanders, chuck you schumer and nazi pee lousy, and rather than stop the conditioning process that begets these abominations, we argue with Satan himself and get nowhere because of it.
I sincerely hope America wakes up after we've been forced tp stop our crazed work and schooling momentum and return a little more Godly wiser and with the common sense, walking around and chewing gum at the same time normalcy of the free-est and Godliest nation on the planet
Nah - then he paused, slowly gripped his umbrella, and smacked the pigeon that was eating the seeds he had strewn by his feet as he told his story.....(from an old Cheech and Chong skit)
The evolution, particularly over these past 3 or 4 decades, into a Soviet-style communist police state has been astounding... Almost no person under the age of 60 has the slightest understanding of the real freedoms we once had... Freedoms we as a Nation willingly gave away through inattention to the internal threats the Nation faced...
The brilliant communist strategy of starting or engaging us in regional wars around the globe that masked their true objectives within the United States was one of the greatest rope-a-dopes in history...
Now here we are, the CPUSA's subsidiary, the democrat party, has come completely and proudly out of the closet, hell-bent on hammering the final nails into freedom's coffin...
In the long run, it is too late for the ballot box to restore even a semblance of the Founders original intent of a Constitutional Republic...
The tree awaits...
Your post bears repeating, and boldly at that. I've been saying that we can't vote our way out of this for quite some time.
I really miss the country I grew up in.
Just a repost. Not made up to the best of my knowledge. Thought it would be worth sharing.
For certain that not many of our aged Freepers are like this gentlemen. Shame, shame.
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