July 2004     

Remembering...

Thank You For Our Freedom

By Wanda Benton

I was a young child when World War II broke out. My father's brother, one of the great loves of my life, joined the infantry and was one of the survivors on the beaches at Normandy. He was a young Tech Sergeant when he was shot up in the caves of Sicily. He dragged himself from man to man in his plattoon and talked them out of suicide pacts, later receiving the Silver Star and Purple Heart.

He was with the 36^th Infantry Division, Company K, 143^rd Infantry Regiment out of Texas. He survived the war to return home to us, his body still full of shrapnel, which they couldn't remove. He was still able to work, and did so his entire life, passing away in his 80s.

WWII Memorial view from Washington Monument. (Photo by Richard Latoff)

My father was a "bleeder," and was 4-F, but worked near Ft.Worth, Texas as a defense worker at Liberator Village. My five-foot-tall, 104-pound mother was a "Rosy the Riveter" at the same place, working the hoot-owl and grave-yard shifts. My parents had boarded-up our modest home near Waco, and went to try and do their part for our country.

I remember coffee and sugar rationing, savings stamps, and saving cooking grease for the government to use in bomb-making (never did figure that one out), and mixing the red stuff in white shortening so that it would look like butter. That was the original margarine, I guess. I also remember the Victory Gardens. Everyone pitched in - the war effort was a community effort, and we, at home, were proud to help.

There wasn't any of this petty, jealous bickering, and partisan nonsense, and self-serving, self-wounded jerks standing on platforms proclaiming to the world their non-existent heroics, either. There was no lying news media, kissing the rear-end of the enemy, and attempting to bring our president down.

The preachers did what they were supposed to do, they preached to, and helped the frightened and the bereaved, instead of ranting and raving and accusing our president of being involved in silly crap like satanism, worshipping idols, conspiracies, and more conspiracies that only superstitious or self-serving people with their own agendas could conjure up; "Useful idiots," as the communists leaders call them.

Field of 4,000 Gold Stars honors more than 400,000 lives lost during the war. (Photo by Richard Latoff)

Celebrities risked it all to go entertain the troops, instead of running their know-nothing mouths, painting the livid picture for the whole world to see of our service people all being nothing short of animals attacking foreign villages like packs of mad dogs. The Jane Fonda types were few and far between, and they were forever labeled war criminals or traitors, with a healthy price on their heads.

I can GUARANTEE you that there were no American flags burned, and some fool left standing to brag about it. The people of our country pulled together, supported our troops in any manner available to them, and supported our presidents, and their decisions until that bloody war was over and our troops returned home. Now, I am being told that public schools rarely mention or teach about that war; it has become a "politically-incorrect" subject. If that is indeed the case, then the powers that be who control what our teachers now teach have evidently become driveling idiots - haven't they?

The real war heroes of this country, the World War II veterans, and those who would follow in their footsteps, deserve more respect than this. Not the actors, who don't know jack about Shinola (cleaned that one up), nor the self-serving, power-seeking media preachers who had BETTER be concerned about what their god thinks about their lies, their little habit of omitting the truth in favor of "selective" coverage of some leftist columinist's opinion, nor all the "celebrities" lumped together, and especially not the most self-serving of them all - the politicians who would sell their soul, and ours, just to stay in power.

Our lives and freedoms once literally depended upon these veterans. Now, they depend upon the young men and women who are out there fighting our battles, and the decisions of the people who will tell them how to do it. I feel strongly that our veterans and service people need our thanks, and our President needs our prayers, and vice-versa. Our World War II veterans are leaving us at a rapid pace. What a terrible loss. They also deserve more than honorable mention once or twice a year, don't they?