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Blogs by S. J. Beres
AIR SHOW 10/4/2005 7:13:55 AM
Thoughts on how little things have really changed. We had an Air Show in my little town last week and I went to see and tour a B-17 bomber from WWII. As I crawled and squeezed my old and corpulent body through it I couldn't help thinking about the young men of my mother's generation standing for freezing hours on 2 foot metal squares, manning their .50's, hoping to catch a glimpse of the enemy through their tiny windows. My son, back from his own war, commented on the amount of armor this ship had. I tapped the milimeters thick metal skin of the aircraft with my knuckles, all that stood between men and sky, and said, "Guns, not armor". I wondered if the bundles of wires and cables that stretched the length of the aircraft had been installed by my mother, who, as a WAC, did that sort of thing. So many thoughts about 'The Greatest Generation'.
Later, as we toured the grounds and ships of lesser size I saw a table manned by a pair of cammo clothed, young, studly Army Sergeants, grinning at a gaggle of giggly, posing young girls. I flippantly asked if they would take me back and beat me into shape and they said, "Sure!". You bet. He waved his hand at his bevy of young beauties. "They let women in now!", an inducement that, no doubt, snares the younger men they want. In my war, young women spat on soldiers, so it was good to see that things had returned to my mother's era, that soldiers were again heros.
My mother became a WAC when my grandmother decided that mom was not displaying the proper '40s attitude for women (find a man, get married, have babies). All of the men were at war, so what better place to meet them? Is this new generation of young ladies really intent on crawling through the mud and shooting people, or are they looking for their own Knights in Shining Armor? Have things really changed that much?
