I was 3 months old when we entered WW II.

[trof]

December 7, 1941.
Before I saw my 4th birthday, Germany had surrendered in complete and utter defeat.
May 7, 1945.
It took 3 years, 5 months, and 28 days.

The U.S. invaded Iraq March 20, 2003.
That was 3 years, 6 months, and 13 days ago.

The surrender of Japan took another 3 months and 13 days.
I'm guessing the Iraq "war" will top that record too.
:-(

[MadMaddie]

1. Yea.....* is working on his legacy right now...

Except it won't read like he thinks it will...

[maxsolomon]

2. how long did we occupy germany & japan?

we're still there. therefore, its either not a 'war' or we are still at war with the axis.

q.e.d.

[trof]

3. As far as I'm concerned, as long as we're exchanging ordnance...

[Frances]

4. Hi Trof,

I was six months old when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Not long after that my parents and I moved to Bay Minette, Alabama, near where you live now. My father worked for the Agrigulture Department; his job was to help the local farmers produce more potatoes for the war effort. I remember my father saying that he talked to one farmer whose son was in a German POW camp. The father said he wasn't worried because his son had cousins in Germany. But all the Baldwin County farmers, including the ones who spoke with German accents, did do their best to grow as many potatoes as possible.

I also remember my parents talking about lots of high school boys coming to Baldwin County to help harvest the potatoes. The boys lived in tents for the duration of the harvest and my father was responsible for buying enough groceries to feed them.

My mother ran a "nursery school," which we would call a day care center so that women could go over to Mobile and work in industries that supported the war.

Just another difference between that war and this: everyone was involved in helping win World War II.

[trof]

7. Well, HI!, former neighbor.

The nearby town of Elberta was settled by Germans around the turn of the last century.
Just down the road from me was a WW II POW camp.
Small world.
:hi:

[zeemike]

11. I know Bay Minette well

Some of the most beautiful well kept farms in the land.

[bvar22]

27. Well, except the Bush Family....

...GW's grandfather (Prescott Bush) was busy helping the NAZIs.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

5. WOW, you ARE an old fart!

You got me beat by fice years!

Thanks for the statistics. Boggles the mind.

[trof]

8. I am! trof=the retired OLD fart.

;-)

[tinfoilinfor2005]

12. And, of course, you've got me beat by five years, not fice years.

(I'm the person who posted a thread about using the spell check, last week)

:blush:

[zeemike]

6. I was born in the middle of the war May 1943

But my father was a Marine veteran of WW1 and I had two brothers that served in ww2 one in the army and the other in the merchant Marines.
The thing i notice the difference between then and now is that my father or my brothers never talked about the war and never wanted to be thanked for serving, to them it was just there duty the same as it was for all young men regardless of their economic background or social status.
And this same military was in place when I joined the Navy in 1960. And in my time in the service I encountered all social classes and some rich kids that served right along with every one else. And no one ever complained.
It was a good experience for all of us.
I don't even recognize my country anymore. It is so sad.

[trof]

9. Same here, buddy. I don't recognize this place any more.

I'll get some flack for this, but I think the army of ALL, was better than the army of mercenaries.

[zeemike]

10. Absolutely right

But we would have a hard time selling that to the young folks now because they do not want to die in a war for oil and the ego of a despotic leader. Can't really blame them.

[Frances]

13. I think the reason World War II combat vets didn't talk about

the war is that their experiences were too bad to discuss. That's according to my two next door neighbors, other townspeople, and relatives. I have a friend my age who said that her uncle lived with her family (in New Jersey) for some time after the war and he would wake up screaming at night. A woman in my hometown (where we moved after the war) divorced her combat vet husband saying, "I hated to do it. He wasn't his fault. But I just couldn't take his nightmares any more." One of our townspeople became an alcoholic. The woman who worked for his family as a maid said he wasn't "like that" before the war. He would wake up at night so nervous that he would get in the car and drive around until he got sleepy. War is hell.

[ACK]

14. War is hell and should not be entered into so casually as we have

I love my Democratic party but Truman started something both Dems and Repukes have used and abused to the endless dis-service of the Constitution of these United States of America.

Your post reminded of something that is not too far off the subject to mention.

The power to declare war on another was granted in the Constitution to congress and for god knows too long the congress of has abandoned their sworn duty upon the Constitution and given the power to declare and make war as the president's decision.

When ever congressman does not have to stand and declare formal war upon another nation and stand by that vote unto history, then war becomes far too easy.

The decision imho becomes too casual.

[zeemike]

15. War is hell for sure

But i think the reason is much deeper than just the terrible experience.
It has a lot to do with culture. In WW1 and WW2 the average GI was from a culture where they rarely ever experienced violence. and there was a strong moral code that was almost universal in this country
If for some reason a sheriff or cop had suspicions of illegal activity at a residence they would simply walk up to the door and knock and ask them what is going on.
Now they assault the house in a military fashion bust down the door and with pointed weapons force every one in the house to the ground even if they are naked.
Can you see the difference? And it does not matter whether they feel it must be done that way because the bad guys are badder then they were. We have scummed to violent and degrading behavior and the reason does not matter.
There was one scene in a movie that made it all click in my head, exactly what is wrong with us.

I don't remember the movie or the actors but the cop beat the hell out of the bad guy and while he was on the flore stuck a gun in his mouth and said "Tell me where he is or I'll blow your fucking head off"
That is just like the torture of today, for the sake of getting information.
America has not only it's sense of justice and fair play but it's very soul.

[ACK]

16. Nostalgia is great until you have to live pre-WWII era as a black person

Or a woman or a hispanic in the west.

I mean one of the world's most active horrible terrorist groups ran wild across America as the KKK during this same prisctine moral times that you put on a pedastal. The lynchings of those eras is one of the most horrible forgotten episodes of American history.

Some of the shit I have heard that hispanics had to deal with were pretty fucked up too. And then there was the Japanese camps during WWII.

Listen I am not putting down on the generation of my grandparents. They were in a real sense an incredible generation of people fighting their way out of the Great Depression while fighting fascism all that alone bears the mark of their greatness.

But I refuse to ever sugarcoat history for any purpose.

[Frances]

18. I have wonderful memories of my childhood,

but there was a lot of violence. I once counted about 10 people I knew who had been killed with guns. These were middle class people too, but we were a hunting and fishing community. Our local sheriff (always a bit unstable) got into an argument with one of the people in the holding cell and shot and killed him through the bars. Unfortunately, I think people are very capable of doing really bad things. I think violence went down under Clinton for a variety of reasons, the most important of which is that Clinton's policies gave people hope that life could be better.

[zeemike]

22. I have not forgotten the dark side of history at all

In 1965 I was sent to Mississippi to hunt for the lost civil rights workers and was able to view first hand those terrible and shameful times.
But to me real progress is to save the good things that work for us and promote truth and justice and get rid of the bad.
And one of the things that worked for us was a conscripted military where all served their country as a duty. It is much harder for an army to commit atrocities against the Innocent when you have a cross section of the populace as soldiers. Moral people will not stand by and watch women and children killed for no reason. And this was one of the problems they had in Viet Nam. The Me Lie massacre only came to light because some of the men refused an order to kill them all.
There were atrocities in WW1 and 2 I am sure but they were minimal compared to today. We treated our prisoners of war for the most part well and did not torture them at least as a mater of policy.

[ACK]

23. I see what you are saying just being perhaps overly cautionary

As a history major from GA even as a silly white boy even I think too often people get too nostalgic over the late-40's and 50's.

Perhaps in hindsight I was projecting too much of that into what you said.

I do believe that an all-volunteer armed forces makes a force focused primarily in one political realm of thought and more ruthless than a force of men who were drafted into service.

[zeemike]

24. it is wise to be cautious

There are still a few out there that would love to take us back to that dark past. but it ain't gonna happen. Too many now know that it was unjust and evil to let it happen again.

[Imagevision]

17. Bush: no lessons learned from Viet Nam..

[SenorSanchez]

19. Well technically

We were at war with Saddam Hussein. Who we defeated easily and quickly. Now we are fighting a very different war. With a few different enemy. We are fighting terrorist organizations. So you could make an argument that we are in two wars in Iraq. One that we have already won and the another that is still raging. I still believe we can win. I could never think this country can lose a war. I would go insane if I did.

[area51]

20. Only Congress can declare war, Mr. Sanchez.

And we lost the Vietnam war, which, like the wars against Iraq & Afghanistan, should have never been started.

[BrotherBuzz]

21. Well technically we fought a couple of different wars during WWII, too

Italy, Germany and Japan come to mind, but there were others. Heck my Pops, the sailor, even fought the Chinese Commies during WWII, although technically his battles might might have been the considered part of WWIII if you listened to the John Birchers.

Oh, how did we do in my war, Vietnam? When I left the service we were doing pretty poorly. Did we lose that war or did we get smart and cut and run? I'm still trying to understand what our mission was. Initially, I was told we went there to protect South Vietnam from the Commies and prevent them from playing dominoes, yet we soon discovered we went there to subjugate the citizens of a sovereign nation battling their own Civil war, not unlike Iraq. :shrug:

[raccoon]

25. Remember Vietnam?

"I could never think this country can lose a war. "

[lpbk2713]

26. The explanation is simple.

Clinton got a BJ




I'm surprised you haven't heard.





:sarcasm: