Today I would like to honor my dad who was a flight engineer on a B-29 toward the end of WW II. He was the only son of a mother widowed in her 20s and struggled mightily during the depression to keep the family together and when the war broke out she begged my dad to stay home, keep his job that paid three times the tiny wages she made as a clerk at a local ice company. She was able to get him deferments for a few years but finally he put his foot down and said he had a bigger duty to his country, and joined the Army.
He ended up on a B-29 air crew that flew bombing runs over Japan from Guam, Saipan, and Tinian. He rarely wanted to talk about his service for he knew that the bombs they carried to Japan were killing lots of people down below. He understood that lots of Americans had also died at the hands of the Japanese, but I could tell he took little pleasure in evening the score. Was it dangerous, I asked? He said, "At certain times, Yes. But worse was the boredom of the long flights there and back."
We are fond of calling my dad's generation "The Greatest Generation" for the way they responded to the Nazi war machine taking over Europe and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Americans flooded the recruitment stations, including baseball stars, and those left behind, from the very wealthy to the poor, sacrificed for four years to allow everything to be focused on producing weapons, vehicles, food, and more for our troops fighting overseas. We're told that will never happen again, that Americans are too lazy and pampered to ever endure those sacrifices again.
That, of course, is bullshit. My Dad's generation responded as they did because of two things we haven't had since: 1) ruthless enemies who were determined to use extreme force to expand their power, and 2) great leadership.
Our enemies in the late 30s and early 40s were of a scale we haven't seen since, and Franklin Roosevelt understood the only way we could win was by an all out effort from everyone. He had to first convince the manufacturing sector to stop making profitable consumer goods and retool quickly to begin making tanks, planes, guns, jeeps, ammo, uniforms, etc. He got eveyone involved in the war effort by touting victory gardens and war bonds, etc.
We won that war in four short years and I'm convinced it was because of the leadership of one man, Franklin Roosevelt rather than a generation of exceptionally brave Americans. Given enemies like we had in the 1940s and exceptional leadership, I'm certain that today's generation of Americans would respond just as bravely and sacrifice just as much as my Dad's generation. Just look at the how our American troops have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. No one can fault their bravery or dedication. What's at fault these days is our leadership. It's been abysmal. George Bush took the 9/11 tragedy which united all Americans against the Taliban and used that patriotic fervor to invade Iraq, thus bogging us down into two miserable, unwinnable wars that have dragged on for a decade. Obama has tried to extricate us but has done it timidly knowing that pulling out our troops quickly would almost certainly be used by his political enemies to paint him as weak on national defence. We not only have poor leadership these days we also have a ruthless opposition party in the Republicans.
But this does nothing to diminish the courage and sacrifices of our armed forces of all generations in the defence of our country, and today I wish to honor my dad and all the others who have sacrificed for our freedoms over the years.
--Trakker
Recent Comments