World War II from Start to Finish by Susan K. Smith
Last edited: Sunday, August 30, 2020
Posted: Sunday, August 30, 2020
The first days of September marked the start and finish of the most deadly war in recorded history: World War Two: September 1, 1939 - September 2, 1945
On a personal note, my father-in-law was one of those who fought in that war. After his death, his family found a memoir of some of his adventures over there:
I like your careful choice of videos. The first one shows where the real sacrifice was. The United States was geographically placed where we didn't have the massive losses experienced in places we rarely think about, the Soviet Union, China, and even, India. Making this war, unlike World War I, involving much more of the world and reaching almost every corner in some way or another.
I am often distressed when I see comparisons of the "greatest generation," [in the United States] and the young people of today. And especially running down on Hollywood. While being more violent than ever in their offerings, accused of being soft and communistic in their behavior. And then, I see that a communist, autocratic country under the brutal reign of Stalin, made the greatest sacrifice in human lives, 24 or more times greater, weakening Nazi Germany and saving countless American and British lives when it came right down to it.
The young American people of the early 1940s had just come off of a decade of hardship and lack of work from the Great Depression. While there was lots of work making patriotic war movies, there was a draft. Almost every young man/woman in the United States was willing to give his/her life for the cause of freedom and democracy. Today, the same thing would happen if some country began marching over other countries with the final intent to march over the United States of America and impose that tyranny again. Only today the implements of war are far more technology-based than human. World war would not be anything like the policing expeditions and terrorist strikes we have been on recently. It would be much more brutal and probably, nuclear.
It is interesting that the greatest generation in Hollywood, many of them Jewish, were singled out in the 1950s as being communist and subversive. There are always those willing to incite hatred from illogical fear and unscientific conclusions. We must guard against them and never let those movements take hold among uneducated and biased people.
Susan
I am often distressed when I see comparisons of the "greatest generation," [in the United States] and the young people of today. And especially running down on Hollywood. While being more violent than ever in their offerings, accused of being soft and communistic in their behavior. And then, I see that a communist, autocratic country under the brutal reign of Stalin, made the greatest sacrifice in human lives, 24 or more times greater, weakening Nazi Germany and saving countless American and British lives when it came right down to it.
The young American people of the early 1940s had just come off of a decade of hardship and lack of work from the Great Depression. While there was lots of work making patriotic war movies, there was a draft. Almost every young man/woman in the United States was willing to give his/her life for the cause of freedom and democracy. Today, the same thing would happen if some country began marching over other countries with the final intent to march over the United States of America and impose that tyranny again. Only today the implements of war are far more technology-based than human. World war would not be anything like the policing expeditions and terrorist strikes we have been on recently. It would be much more brutal and probably, nuclear.
It is interesting that the greatest generation in Hollywood, many of them Jewish, were singled out in the 1950s as being communist and subversive. There are always those willing to incite hatred from illogical fear and unscientific conclusions. We must guard against them and never let those movements take hold among uneducated and biased people.
Ron