I stopped by the cemetery this evening on my way home from an errand since I happened to be on that side of town. These days, I try to make it a point to visit my late father's grave as often as time and inclination allows, especially when the weather is fair. Tonight is a classic hot sunny summer day, so it seemed perfect to make a stopover there to see how things are looking and to make sure that his grave didn't have that sad and neglected look that used to make me so sad when I saw graves in the cemetery that had obviously stopped being tended. Fortunately, it looks very nice, the yew trees my brother planted a few years back to replace the ones he chopped down to the stumps (with the mistaken assumption that they'd grow back, which they never did) are looking quite attractive and well kept. I'd love to plant some perennials there one of these days but you have to do it at a certain time in order for them to take, so I'd need to ask a friend of mine who knows her garden stuff when a good time would be to do that and what she would suggest as to what kind of flower should be planted there. Anyway, the main point of this blog is this: when I stood at my father's grave, which has a WWII bronze grave marker like the one pictured and a nice clean crisp flag from Memorial Day on it, I looked out at the surrounding graves all around me, and saw a veritable sea of flags. Almost every other grave had a flag marker on it, and the lion's share of them belonged to WWII veterans, who are dying off by the thousands daily. My own father, had he lived down to the current time, would be turning 89 this year, and he was just shy of his 19th birthday when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Naturally, like so many men his age, he enlisted in the great cause of his age and went off to war, only to find himself staying stateside and serving as a military policeman in a German POW camp. I was surprised that they brought German POWs to the US and held them here, and some of them found life here so good that after the war, they stayed, got good jobs, married and raised families as American citizens. It was quite the surprise to find out this little known fact of WWII history, in fact.
Anyway, the one thing I found myself thinking while standing there in that sea of flags and bronze war memorials is that my parents generation knew the real meaning of shared sacrifice. When World War II broke out, our entire nation mobilized and everyone worked together toward the war effort. There was a sense of national unity, where regardless of whether you were rich or poor, you did your part for the war effort. Everyone worked together in tandem and at the end of the war, America could boast that the whole country pitched in to help our troops achieve victory in the Pacific and in Europe. People were asked to make huge sacrifices, and to give up certain luxuries so that the whole nation could turn its energies toward winning this enormous world wide conflict. People willingly gave up certain foodstuffs, their metal fences around their yards or around their Victorian widow's walks, they gave up metal things around the house to make weapons, they rationed gasoline that was needed to fuel vehicles fighting around the world, they even made silver "war" pennies because copper was needed for things like bullets and shell casings, among other things. I grew up hearing the stories of that time when even the most affluent among us made deep personal sacrifices to win the war overseas. You'd never find that happening in today's America. People would sooner die than give up one thing or even a little extra money. We have a national dcbt crisis looming in Washington and yet the most affluent among us refuse to pony up even an extra dime of their money to help pay down the debt because of who sits in the White House. If this were a Republican, they still might balk, but they might eventually waver and give in, but the fact that the President is not only a Democrat BUT an African-American biracial President makes it particularly egregious to some folks who still think "that 'boy' needs to learn his place". Yes, racism still abounds in this country, sadly. Here we sit almost 150 years after emancipation and blacks have
still not achieved a certain parity with whites. Now, I know what you're going to say, so I will say it instead, racism occurs on both sides of the racial divide. Yes, it does. I agree. And it's a shame that it does, too. But this country needs to come together right now and solve its most pressing problems without all the partisan hacks dividing us one from another. I just think that in the age of the Internet and the 24/7 news cycle that it's probably impossible for that ever to happen again, and that's a shame. I am sure that the Greatest Generation, who fought to liberate the world from tyrrany, are probably rolling in their graves at the sheer lack of unity that has divided our nation, one side from another. They fought to free the world from people like those in Washington today, who would yank the social safety net out from underneath the most vulnerable and funnel the wealth created by that steadily up to the richest of the rich who don't need any more money. If by doing this they are supposed to invest that money to create jobs, why haven't they already? Where are the promised jobs? Why haven't they materialized, huh? Seriously, I'd like some answers from those who think that the wealthy are sitting on top of all that money that they are going to use to create a paradise of plentiful jobs. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Buelller?
I stopped by the cemetery this evening on my way home from an errand since I happened to be on that side of town. These days, I try to make it a point to visit my late father's grave as often as time and inclination allows, especially when the weather is fair. Tonight is a classic hot sunny summer day, so it seemed perfect to make a stopover there to see how things are looking and to make sure that his grave didn't have that sad and neglected look that used to make me so sad when I saw graves in the cemetery that had obviously stopped being tended. Fortunately, it looks very nice, the yew trees my brother planted a few years back to replace the ones he chopped down to the stumps (with the mistaken assumption that they'd grow back, which they never did) are looking quite attractive and well kept. I'd love to plant some perennials there one of these days but you have to do it at a certain time in order for them to take, so I'd need to ask a friend of mine who knows her garden stuff when a good time would be to do that and what she would suggest as to what kind of flower should be planted there. Anyway, the main point of this blog is this: when I stood at my father's grave, which has a WWII bronze grave marker like the one pictured and a nice clean crisp flag from Memorial Day on it, I looked out at the surrounding graves all around me, and saw a veritable sea of flags. Almost every other grave had a flag marker on it, and the lion's share of them belonged to WWII veterans, who are dying off by the thousands daily. My own father, had he lived down to the current time, would be turning 89 this year, and he was just shy of his 19th birthday when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Naturally, like so many men his age, he enlisted in the great cause of his age and went off to war, only to find himself staying stateside and serving as a military policeman in a German POW camp. I was surprised that they brought German POWs to the US and held them here, and some of them found life here so good that after the war, they stayed, got good jobs, married and raised families as American citizens. It was quite the surprise to find out this little known fact of WWII history, in fact. 
Anyway, the one thing I found myself thinking while standing there in that sea of flags and bronze war memorials is that my parents generation knew the real meaning of shared sacrifice. When World War II broke out, our entire nation mobilized and everyone worked together toward the war effort. There was a sense of national unity, where regardless of whether you were rich or poor, you did your part for the war effort. Everyone worked together in tandem and at the end of the war, America could boast that the whole country pitched in to help our troops achieve victory in the Pacific and in Europe. People were asked to make huge sacrifices, and to give up certain luxuries so that the whole nation could turn its energies toward winning this enormous world wide conflict. People willingly gave up certain foodstuffs, their metal fences around their yards or around their Victorian widow's walks, they gave up metal things around the house to make weapons, they rationed gasoline that was needed to fuel vehicles fighting around the world, they even made silver "war" pennies because copper was needed for things like bullets and shell casings, among other things. I grew up hearing the stories of that time when even the most affluent among us made deep personal sacrifices to win the war overseas. You'd never find that happening in today's America. People would sooner die than give up one thing or even a little extra money. We have a national dcbt crisis looming in Washington and yet the most affluent among us refuse to pony up even an extra dime of their money to help pay down the debt because of who sits in the White House. If this were a Republican, they still might balk, but they might eventually waver and give in, but the fact that the President is not only a Democrat BUT an African-American biracial President makes it particularly egregious to some folks who still think "that 'boy' needs to learn his place". Yes, racism still abounds in this country, sadly. Here we sit almost 150 years after emancipation and blacks have still not achieved a certain parity with whites. Now, I know what you're going to say, so I will say it instead, racism occurs on both sides of the racial divide. Yes, it does. I agree. And it's a shame that it does, too. But this country needs to come together right now and solve its most pressing problems without all the partisan hacks dividing us one from another. I just think that in the age of the Internet and the 24/7 news cycle that it's probably impossible for that ever to happen again, and that's a shame. I am sure that the Greatest Generation, who fought to liberate the world from tyrrany, are probably rolling in their graves at the sheer lack of unity that has divided our nation, one side from another. They fought to free the world from people like those in Washington today, who would yank the social safety net out from underneath the most vulnerable and funnel the wealth created by that steadily up to the richest of the rich who don't need any more money. If by doing this they are supposed to invest that money to create jobs, why haven't they already? Where are the promised jobs? Why haven't they materialized, huh? Seriously, I'd like some answers from those who think that the wealthy are sitting on top of all that money that they are going to use to create a paradise of plentiful jobs. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Buelller?
1 comment:
Yes, in the US the word community has lost its meaning of common unity.
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