forgotten lessons
My Grandparents raised 3 boys on a farm in rural Nebraska. Grandma's heart broke the day all three of her boys said they were going to go fight in WWII. Pearl Harbor had just been attacked and there was nothing a mother could do to keep her boys from leaving. As luck had it, they all made it back. If you have grown up in a home where a parent was on active duty, then you know the war doesn't stop when the soldiers come home. All three boy's lives were forever awash in a river of alcoholism. And every Memorial day that came around, my dad was there to commemorate the friends he lost and the bad memories that never went away. I was there too because the whole family made a day of it. We were taught from a very early age that our American democracy was precious. Fascism was not funny. Maybe when you watched Hogan's Heroes it was funny, but fascism was not something to be flirted with. And here we are in an America where half the country seems to have forgotten that horrible lesson. Please, don't be fooled by the rhetoric of people who never served, like Donald Trump and his entourage. They have no game plan for what to do after they destroy democracy. They are spoiled and greedy and only care about power. And Putin and his entourage smile and quietly plan their next move.
Letter to the editor sent to Lincoln Journal Star