Hey Commish – Show ‘Em A Day At The Beach

Hey Commish, here’s what you need to do. Since your charges are all twenty to thirty somethings, you are going to have to tell them there was a war way back in the 40’s, called WWII. Tell them that a lot of our boys enlisted for that war effort, went over there, lied about their ages; ’cause they couldn’t wait to kill a few huns. Then, Commish, tell them a little about D’Day, like the fact that 2,500 of those boys died that day, and then show ’em the video above. It’ll confuse them, ’cause it ain’t the typical video they are used to.

 

Then, Commish, show them a few shots of the memorial at Colleville-sur-Mer, France. Let ’em take all that in. Then, Commish, tell ’em that the requirement for them to continue to play in the NFL, is, they have to find one of the survivors of WWII, (or Korea, Vietnam or The Desert Wars), then walk up to him, then take a knee, and then thank him, from the bottom of his millionaire heart, for the man’s service. Tell ’em, Commish, they better hurry ’cause there ain’t many of those WWII heroes left.

And Commish? If they don’t get it after that………they never will, and we’ll underastand.

I Hate Being So Indecisive

I used to think that Actors and Actresses were kind of ditsy people who couldn’t decide who they were, what kind of life they wanted, or what they wanted to do with their lives. I mean, the average marriage amongst them probably lasts an average of 3 to 5 years, or before the money runs out, or the star fades, or until the sex thing wears off, or whichever comes first. I could never understand how they could play in a shoot-em-up movie, one day, and then be in a gun control ad the next. It seems strange, to me, that they puff on cigarettes in a movie, and then take money for a ‘stop smoking ad’, because they care. Seems more like double dipping to me. But the ones that get me the most are the ones that host lavish parties, costing millions of dollars, for political entities like Obama, who then feels he needs to contribute millions of our taxpayer dollars to Ruanda, rather than veterans. Why don’t they just send the party money to Ruanda, and stay home and watch one of their movies, or TV reruns.

Although I still hold onto those thoughts, I’m now wondering if it isn’t their fans and followers that are ditsy. I mean watch the fans fall all over the celebs at the Oscars, screaming, sobbing, throwing undergarments, waving their arms, quite a scene actually. I can’t understand why the fans hang one every word the celebrity utters at Political Rallys, Political Conventions, Political ads. The celebs are certainly entitled to their political opinions, leanings and ideologies, but they don’t know any more about what they are talking about then does the man on the street, but yet thousands of fans look up and drool as Katie Perry says, “Can’t we all just love on eachother”. As profound as that statement is, I have no clue what it does to combat terrorism, fix immigration laws or ‘Make America Great Again’.

So now I’m lost, at an impass, pondering and posing who is the ditso, the one who can’t figure it out, or the one that idolizes him/her.

Boom. Right Or Wrong.

MARIANAS: CREWS The ground crew of the B-29 "Enola Gay" which atom-bombed Hiroshima, Japan. Col. Paul W. Tibbets, the pilot is the center. Marianas Islands.
MARIANAS: CREWS
The ground crew of the B-29 “Enola Gay” which atom-bombed Hiroshima, Japan. Col. Paul W. Tibbets, the pilot is the center. Marianas Islands.

Just finished reading Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing the Rising Sun“. As I have said many times before, I lived through WWII, remember it vividly, and had family serving in the Pacific from Midway through the end of the war. I don’t really remember the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I do remember my cousin returning home from the war and how happy I was that it was over.

Over the years I solidified my opion of the decision President Harry S. Truman made, and I have always felt that we did the right thing ending the war by whatever means available to us. Japan was showing no sign of surrender, even as we opened it’s back door, Okinawa (losing 6000 American lives), and prepared to fight Japan on it’s homeland, they would not unconditionally surrender. Estimates of 100,000 to several million allied lives and more millions of civilian lives would be saved by forcing the surrender. Japan still had 40 million rabid followers of Hirohito vowing to fight to the last man.

As I read O’reilly’s description of the horrendous devastation of the two cities I paused. Descriptive words like vaporized bodies, skin falling off, instant death, and total devistation, caused me to rethink my feelings and judgements. Then I recalled the Bataan March, the Philippine autrocities, the Comfort Women and the take-no-prisoners stories I heard as a child, and reread in O’Reilly’s marvelous recounting; my original feelings were reinforced.

I whole heartedly believe that Truman and the Joint Chiefs made the correct decision. We had spent too many years, lost too many lives and shed too many tears to, any longer, put up with a petulant dictator (Hirohito) and an egomaniacal general (Tojo) to continue sheding more precious American, Australian and British blood.

Read the book, form your own opinions remembering over 1,000,000 Americans were killed (406K) or wounded (607K) in WWII, and the likelyhood of doubling that figure was at stake when the Hiroshima/Nagasaki decision was made.