Dreadnought

I just want to say thank you to my father and all of the men and women who served unselfishly during WWII. You helped shape the world and ofcoarse our country and our culture. People find the Iraq war very disturbing and it is but they dont know how good they have it. However if they really paid attention to those years, those men and women and those stories they would soon find out what war is on a large scale with atrocities commited far worse then what we see now and hunderds of thousands of lives lost. Again thank you some of us young people will never forget how much you all gave and for giving all of this the world became a better place! CAN WE EVER BE THE MEN AND WOMEN THAT YOU ONCE WERE? God Bless our Vets and our Troops wherever they may be and God Bless "OUR" America.

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sparten

Beautiful sentiments, Dreadnought.

To my own Grand Uncle; thank You.

Now if only you would agree to see Germans and Japanese.

__________________
"Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

Dreadnought

Sorry Sparten not sure what you refer too.

i.e.( Now if you would only agree to see the Germans and Japanese)

sparten

In this context I thought it was obvious. He was in the war (Indian Army, later seconded to BA) served in France, North Africa, Sciliy, Italy and Burma. He point blank refuses to meet Germans or Japanese people, even changes the TV Channel when the leaders come on.

Explainable, he was captured in N Africa, and the Germans put a vernier caliper to his noes to see whether or not he was sub-human. As it turned out he has or had rather red hair and blue eyes (he is from the North of Pakistan) and is very light skinned. He was declared 'Aryan'. Some other soldiers were not so lucky. Fortunatly he escaped.

In Burma apparently Japanese soldiers would surrender and than come up with a granade up their *****.

Dreadnought

Ok Sparten now i can understand your point.

My father who was a navy gunner doesnt care to talk about those days too much. I think he still regrets having to do some of the things he did and saw. So when he does talk about it I just listen without questions to a man who had to do what he had to do in defense of his ship and his buds. I think the Japanese are still trying to atone for their actions during the War and I think we all hope the world is listening to them. Nothing can replace the people that have gone during that time. But we can learn to forgive and prosper.

My Uncle served as a Marine colonel and along with his troops stormed Normandy Beach under intense german fire where he saw the majority of his friends and fellow countrymen die. Afterwards he was stationed on the cliffs of Okinawa to shell the city constantly until the Japanese would later surrender. To this day he has never held a grudge against anyone or anything and he had to encounter both the Japanese and the Germans. They are both in their eighties now and have pretty much "mellowed" hearts as far as war is concerned. I do accompay him to the Anniversaries at the VFW and feel very proud of him as well as the people who recognize that he was a BB sailor at one time .They do have some problems with the way the world is nowadays but I can only tell them how much has changed since their days. Neither have ever spoken badly about either of the two countries or their leaders in a bad way. Guess this just goes to show what men in those days were made of. They say some men still feel sorrow and some still feel a sense of hatred but what can we say when we didn't have to confront these things "head on" as they had to in different times when it was clear who the enemy was.

sparten

Oh he does not talk about it much. We only learnt it after a long while. He fought the war for 6 years, and I think it scarred him, almost permently. Than unlike your uncle, he was from a colony, freedom was something he did not enjoy anyway.

Dreadnought

We can only hope Sparten to become the men that they once were and are now. To those who seek Freedom there is no price to high to pay for something that should have been granted to them from the very beginning for absolutely nothing.

sparten

I hope we never have to face what they did.

Lemme see, born during or in the aftermath of the Great War, faced the Spanish Influenza pandemic, than the Great Depression, than WWII, than a Cold War.

Darwinism at its best. One of the reasons they could do what they did. Only the strongest can survive all the above. About a 100 million did not.

Dreadnought

Tough ol birds werent they...lol