so many have forgotten it these last years ,
i never do , i was reminded growing up just what this day meant and cost , it is the day in 1941 when my father and his best friend , my namesake "john" drove back from california , in a snowstorm , from their aircraft industry jobs , after high school , to enlist ,
john went into the army and was overseas in a few months , he came back and i actually knew him although he died young when i was preteens ,
my father went army air corp - took a few years of training but ended up in a B29 bomber crew - tail number A square 10 [imagine that] left gunner , because the midwesterners were wing shooters - upland birds , could hit the target in a moving pickup truck while it was being towed by an aircraft , with a 12ga shotgun , posted on saipan , right next to tinnian where both Abombs left from , i grew up knowing that , it was a good thing in my home - my father came home and i exist because of those events , i will never apologize , the PTSD was not always a factor back then ,
we also recognized the two august dates in my home as the end of the war , ive not said much but those were days when we actually believed the world was a better place for it , ive not forgotten ,
today its a big event that the japanese head of government is making the first visit to pearl harbor in 75 years since it occurred , and its a big deal that BO was the first president to visit the commemorative of the bombing of nagasaki , im offended that neither have recognized these events prior to this yet understand the significance of "official" recognition , im also offendeed that BO selected this time to put this on the political map in the way he did - we owe no apology , ending that war was foremost and utmost for everyone ,
starting that war was a gross miscalculation on the part of the japanese - we owe no apology for that either ,
i am one who would have wished for far different , no attack and no retaliations , but that is not history , IT WAS WHAT IT WAS , and is what it is , today[tomorrow] we remember , at least those of us that recall ,
the ENOLA GAY got fitted for the trip - it could have been any of those that were based there , it might have been any crew , history set the stage and we dealt the blow much as they did on december 7th , we cannot forget and i will not forget tomorrow ,
my family used to meet at the amvets club [up here its VFW and 'legions' ] for dinner on this evening and there were conversations that the children were not included in , the discussions were sometimes tense , but i recall them as always civil ,
i am a babyboomer - born after the war - but the war was never far from our lives even when things were good , and i will admit [in hind sight] things were good , im only now realizing just how good my youth was - even tho my fathers been dead over 16 years now ,
|