Sunday, September 11, 2016

A DAY, JUST LIKE ANY OTHER

"Captain, how often does a little ship like this sink?" "Usually, just once."

-The Gismo, newsletter of the USS Samuel B. Roberts, September 30, 1944.

It's another anniversary and this time I see all of our brave diplomats hunkered down for the day and the night at the local Hotel Metropole as they wait for the fruit of their skillful diplomacy to roll over their embassies and consulates.

I used to work with the FAST Marines. I suspect every single one of them is on duty today and will be until tomorrow. Wonder, in the splendid diplomatic skills of a man and a department that loath America as the day of perpetual reckoning has drawn nigh.

We remember.

3 comments:

OldAFSarge said...

And we don't forgive.

HMS Defiant said...

Eventually, even we forgive. Not all of us, but enough.

My grandmother despised the Germans. Hate is not too strong a word. You can imagine how my parents must have felt when she visited them as my older sister and then I were born, in Germany in the late 50's and early 60's. My grandmother was the kindest person on earth but she had no problem sharing how she felt about the Germans and to a lesser extent, the Japanese.
I know you're reading on the War. Look at what happened after the fall of the 3rd Reich and the anti-diaspora as every country in Europe expelled every single ethnic German back into Germany and they drove them out just about as mercilessly as the Germans harried the Jews. When that happens to the muslims, I'd say we could start to forgive, a little.

OldAFSarge said...

Good point.

My Uncle Charlie hated Germans every bit as much as your grandmother. He was in the infantry in the ETO. Last time I saw him was at Christmas in '91 before heading off to my sunset assignment in Germany. He mentioned at that last Christmas more than once just how much he hated Germans.

I am familiar what happened after the fall of the Third Reich, it was particularly bad in the East. The Russians were doing unto others as had been done to them. In spades.

And yes, in my book they deserved it. As ye sow...