“...encourages them to believe we care what they think....”
The sad thing is, some morons do.
But here’s an education for those morons:
Every 19 or 20 year old kid who ever stood a watch in a combat zone in -30 degree Korean winds...
...Who went to the deserts or Iraq and Afghanistan to fight religious psychopaths...
...Who crouched in holes while mortars or artillery rained down on them...
...Who stayed back and fought rear-guard to hold ground so his buddies could retreat...
...Marines who scaled Mount Suribachi on Iwo to plant the flag...
...The pilot of an SBD Dauntless dive bomber who just dropped his 500 pounder on carrier Akagi at Midway, and yelled into the microphone “Arizona, I remember you!”...
...The men at Khe Sahn, holding off the NVA, subjected to long range artillery for weeks...
...Green infantrymen in the Ardennes, using rifles and grenades to try and stop German tanks....
...Airborne troopers jumping into France in the darkness, hours before D-Day...
...Young destroyer sailors fighting off kamikazes off the coast Okinawa, because there IS no place to retreat to...
...The poor bastards on Bataan, holding out for a few precious months against overwhelming Japanese numbers, with ZERO chance of getting help... the men and nurses on Corregidor, getting pounded by artillery day after day...
...The cops and the firemen that rushed into the World Trade Center to pull people out... and never got out...
.. and a myriad of other acts of individual and collective heroism, where lives were lost, and others saved because of those actions.
THOSE ARE HEROES. And the true mark of it is, every one of those people involved would NEVER even remotely think of themselves as “heroes”.
I was raised by Men like that. And they truly were a magnificent generation. My old man and his brothers were 55 feet tall to me. Every one of them, Depression era hardasses and combat vets.
If I had any say in course materials for grade and high schools, one of the books I’d mandate is a book listing EVERY Medal of Honor recipient and their citations for valor.
Sorry for the rant. This article just struck a raw nerve.
Thank you for that.
Never apologize for that brother.
That’s an excellent glimpse into the the lives of men who made what we have today at all possible.
Now is the time for men like that to rise again, we will need extraordinary men and women for what’s coming.
“Sorry for the rant. This article just struck a raw nerve.”
I understand and enjoyed your ‘rant’. My father was one of those also. WW2 Captain. Never met a more humble man, beloved by everyone he touched, yet I took him for granted in my youth and later grew to fully appreciate him as a hero to me as I matured.
Lost him six years ago to cancer but I’m grateful for every year I had him with me.