Another Reader Contribution

" I talked to a man today" — Thank you Earl

I talked with a man today, an 90-year-old man. 

I asked him if there was anything I can get him while this Corona virus scare was gripping America.

He simply smiled, looked away and said:

"Let me tell you what I need! I need to believe, at some point, this country my generation fought for... I need to believe this nation we handed safely to our children and their children...

I need to know this generation will quit being a bunch of sissies...that they respect what they've been given...that they've earned what others sacrificed for."

I wasn't sure where the conversation was going or if it was going anywhere at all. So, I sat there, quietly observing.

"You know, I was a little boy during WWII. Those were scary days. We didn't know if we were going to be speaking English, German or Japanese at the end of the war. There was no certainty, no guarantees like Americans enjoy today.

And no home went without sacrifice or loss. Every house, up and down every street, had someone in harm's way. Maybe their Daddy was a soldier, maybe their son was a sailor, maybe it was an uncle. Sometimes it was the whole damn family...fathers, sons, uncles...

Having someone, you love, sent off to war..it wasn't less frightening than it is today. It was scary as Hell. If anything, it was more frightening. We didn't have battlefront news. We didn't have email or cellphones. You sent them away and you hoped...you prayed. You may not hear from them for months, if ever. Sometimes a mother was getting her son's letters the same day Dad was comforting her over their child's death.

And we sacrificed. You couldn't buy things. Everything was rationed. You were only allowed so much milk per month, only so much bread, toilet paper. EVERYTHING was restricted for the war effort. And what you weren't using, what you didn't need, things you threw away, they were saved and sorted for the war effort. My generation was the original recycling movement in America.

And we had viruses back then...serious viruses. Things like polio, measles, and such. It was nothing to walk to school and pass a house or two that was quarantined. We didn't shut down our schools. We didn't shut down our cities. We carried on, without masks, without hand sanitizer. And do you know what? We persevered. We overcame. We didn't attack our President, we came together. We rallied around the flag for the war. Thick or thin, we were in it to win. And we would lose more boys in an hour of combat than we lose in entire wars today."

He slowly looked away again. Maybe I saw a small tear in the corner of his eye. Then he continued:

"Today's kids don't know sacrifice. They think sacrifice is not having coverage on their phone while they freely drive across the country. Today's kids are selfish and spoiled. In my generation, we looked out for our elders. We helped out with single moms whose husbands were either at war or dead from war. Today's kids rush the store, buying everything they can...no concern for anyone but themselves. It's shameful the way Americans behave these days. None of them deserve the sacrifices their granddads made.

So, no I don't need anything. I appreciate your offer but, I know I've been through worse things than this virus. But maybe I should be asking you, what can I do to help you? Do you have enough pop to get through this, enough steak? Will you be able to survive with 113 channels on your tv?"

I smiled, fighting back a tear of my own...now humbled by a man in his 80's. All I could do was thank him for the history lesson, leave my number for emergency and leave with my ego firmly tucked in my rear.

I talked to a man today. A real man. An American man from an era long gone and forgotten. We will never understand the sacrifices. We will never fully earn their sacrifices. But we should work harder to learn about them..learn from them...to respect them.

Shrinking Violets

For a long time we Conservatives have been shrinking violets. No more! The Progs have finally become too aggressive in pushing their loopy agenda ... right in the face of Conservatives who have believed in “fairness.” Well fairness and comity haven’t been working ... the Progs are using every dirty trick and their media buddies to prevail ... so an increasing number of Conservatives (we, after all, are the majority) have decided to push back. Enough of this bullying! Time to start asserting our advantage in numbers and right reasoning!

And you know why we have finally gotten some backbone? Why it’s that we finally realized our potential? Very simple! It’s the Orangeman, Donald J. trump.

For all his flaws and faults, he has shown the Right that they don’t need to keep rolling over for the  Left. The Progs are much more wrong than they are right ... and their leadership, both at the local and national level, has not kept us winning. Yet somehow we are magically still number one ... on the strength of our “greatest generation” ... but, if we don’t wake up soon, we’re doomed to hold that fingered “L” to our foreheads ... to the muffled giggles of the George Soros posse and the America Lasters.

I know I am sounding jingoistic ... but one needs not to look far across this great country to realize how low we have sunk in the last thirty years ... while much of the rest of the world has played us for suckers.

After winning the Cold War, we were resting on our oars while others took advantage of us. Now, no more! Unless our snowflake generation behaves as their pedagogical betters have programmed them to, our country now has a chance to recover our greatness ... and bequest a genuine legacy of freedom and prosperity to all our issue.

And we are starting, ever so slightly, to prevail. Thank you, Donald for opening our eyes!

Another Lost Generation

I am sadly coming to the difficult conclusion that the current generation of coming-of-age Americans has been so inculcated with PC hogwash and liberal newspeak that, as a group, their ability to think independently and affirm our nation's traditional values has been irreparably lost. Witness the recent mess at the University of Missouri.

The evidence is rife ... the plethora of popular bubble-headed glitterati, disturbing college campus demonstrations advocating repressive policies, the tidal wave of teenage illicit drug usage, the continued crowding-out of once-basic college education by meaningless feel-good courses, the youth vote helping to twice elect President Obama, the ennui and ignorance of this generation toward American history and our place on the World stage, and their overweening selfie vanity.

Yes, there was at least one previous American "lost generation" ... those born at the turn of the Twentieth Century. This group ushered in the Roaring Twenties and its consequence, the Great Depression. However, this, in turn, brought us to the Greatest Generation which turned our economy around and won World War II. So, all may not be truly lost. The legacy of this current bunch of misguided misfits might well be a reawakening of moral rationality and patriotic energy in those who then follow our current Lost Generation.

I certainly pray so.

My Ears are Steaming

There is steam coming from my ears.  Blowhard Bill Maher yesterday had the knock-kneed temerity to slander World War II veterans  as “[not] the brightest generation.” This was due to their entering the WWII Memorial that had been Barry-caded as a result of the impasse over our government’s 2014 funding (aka, the “continuing resolution”) ... see: Breitbart Story. 

Mole-rat Maher has a supposed comedic show on HBO wherein he launches equivalent incendiary commentary to an audience of other know-nothings.  After 9/11/2001, on a previous show on ABC, he said that it was the U.S. military who were cowards and not the Islamic extremists who drove the planes into the World Trade Center ... see: Mediate Story.  He was quickly to leave that gig.

I sincerely hope that one of our “greatest generation” octogenarians calls out this 57-year old misanthropic pipsqueak, Maher, over his cheap characterizations.  Then we will really find out who is the coward.