OT: Today is a day to remember

[tjreese]

Having provided hearing healthcare at the VA for the past 19 years I have witnessed the steady loss of our WWII and Korean vets. These were the men of my parent's generation. Nearly all of my uncles were in the military in WWII and all were fortunate enough to return home. People born in the past 30 years have little understanding of the way the war effort affected everyone. Rationing of petroleum, sugar and many items was real and severe. Today we panic because of the potential loss of a ready supply of avacados. Women contributed greatly as factory workers producing the weapons of war. In the 80s I had the opportunity to work with a woman in production at Alcoa who was tough as nails and disliked by most because she pushed you to work harder than most wanted to. She was in her 60s and could out work many younger men . I learned that she had worked on the bomber assembly line at Ford in the Detroit area during the war. Her story was a lot like Forrest Gump's. After the war she married and they opened a sporting goods store in the neighborhood of Haight and Asbury in San Francisco. As the neighborhood became a haven for hippys in the 60s her husband found free love more attractive than a wife. If you know any remnants of this generation talk to them while you still can. When they go some incredible stories will go forever.

You are soooooooo correct.

 

[tjreese]

Ahh, the unwinnable argument. Without regard to viewpoint all participants in the war did so at great cost. Lost and damaged lives, economic loss, geographic loss. All parties suffered. Forgotten in all war discussions is the loss of innovative minds. Without such loss might cancer have been defeated and other great discoveries lost that might never come to fruition?

A very interesting perspective that I haven't considered and could very well be true. I normally think of war as advancing science such as the civil war and medicine or the physical sciences developed for that military advantage. However, the converse could be true as well