...in which the world plunged into madness. Officially, the war ground to a halt in August of 1945. OS is the son of a Marine who was being prepared for the ground invasion of Japan. In the wake of the battle for Okinawa, which claimed so many lives, the estimates were that it would require many many more men, and the campaign would stretch into 1947 or so.
So, that horror was avoided by the use of another horror, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and here sits OS, pecking away as a result.
(No, he's not guilty of that horror, but he is a bit haunted by the thought that he is its beneficiary.)
It was madness, completely avoidable madness. A world deciding that 1914-1918 had not spilled enough blood, that a do-over was necessary.
And, after August 1945, we found ourselves in a world forever on the verge of war, mainly in the name of some Utopian scheme or another, be it racial, religious, political, economic, national, or some toxic blend of elements of the list. For the most part, at least here, not outright war, but most certainly an uneasy quasi-peace.
So, here we sit, seventy-two years later, praying for wisdom and grace to not be dragged down that dark tunnel once more. As the parent of a young man, watching other young men born in his same year, returning in coffins to shattered parents, OS prays for mercy for us all; that somehow Providence will provide us grown-ups in positions of leadership, sober souls who understand (and care) that the decisions they make mean death or life for millions.
Showing posts with label World War 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World War 2. Show all posts
Friday, September 2, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Lt. Jack Volz, KIA IN 1943, Finally Laid To Rest In Louisville This Weekend
For those who scratch their heads, and wonder what America is about, and what makes America tick, OldSouth shares this story from the Louisville Courier-Journal:
Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Jack E. Volz, a World War II aviator declared dead a year and a day after his B-24 Liberator went missing in the South Pacific in 1943, will be laid to rest with full military honors Saturday at Cave Hill Cemetery.
Volz’s remains will arrive from Hawaii just before noon Thursday at Louisville International Airport, where a military honor squad will escort him to a hearse that will make the trip to Ratterman’s Funeral Home in St. Matthews.
“It’s such a special miracle,” said niece Marilyn Simonds, 63.
Volz, 21, and his crew and plane vanished on Oct. 27, 1943. Sixty years later, in 2003, someone who had passed by the wreckage in Papua, New Guinea and picked up Volz’s identification card turned it over to a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command team, which located the crash site in 2005.
In early 2007, after the Army obtained DNA samples from family members, the crash site was excavated and the remains were taken to Hawaii.
After the matches were confirmed, the Army sat with the family, presenting some three hundred pages of evidence that these remains were indeed those of Lt. Volz, and arranged for the funeral at one of the great historic cemeteries of the country. A portion of his remains will also be interred with the remains of his crew in Arlington Cemetery in August.
Lt. Volz was one of millions of young lives cut short by the utter madness of collectivist, utopian and nation-as-religion monsters of the twentieth century. But in America, the sacrifice he made to help set things right is not forgotten. Here is an opportunity, in some small way, to redeem this tragedy, and to remind ourselves and the world who we all are when we are at our best.
Here's hoping, and encouraging, that many will take the time to pay their respects at the funeral home and cemetery tomorrow, to give the young man a fitting welcome home.
The funeral home is here.
Cave Hill Cemetery is here.
Army Air Forces 1st Lt. Jack E. Volz, a World War II aviator declared dead a year and a day after his B-24 Liberator went missing in the South Pacific in 1943, will be laid to rest with full military honors Saturday at Cave Hill Cemetery.
Volz’s remains will arrive from Hawaii just before noon Thursday at Louisville International Airport, where a military honor squad will escort him to a hearse that will make the trip to Ratterman’s Funeral Home in St. Matthews.
“It’s such a special miracle,” said niece Marilyn Simonds, 63.
Volz, 21, and his crew and plane vanished on Oct. 27, 1943. Sixty years later, in 2003, someone who had passed by the wreckage in Papua, New Guinea and picked up Volz’s identification card turned it over to a Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command team, which located the crash site in 2005.
In early 2007, after the Army obtained DNA samples from family members, the crash site was excavated and the remains were taken to Hawaii.
After the matches were confirmed, the Army sat with the family, presenting some three hundred pages of evidence that these remains were indeed those of Lt. Volz, and arranged for the funeral at one of the great historic cemeteries of the country. A portion of his remains will also be interred with the remains of his crew in Arlington Cemetery in August.
Lt. Volz was one of millions of young lives cut short by the utter madness of collectivist, utopian and nation-as-religion monsters of the twentieth century. But in America, the sacrifice he made to help set things right is not forgotten. Here is an opportunity, in some small way, to redeem this tragedy, and to remind ourselves and the world who we all are when we are at our best.
Here's hoping, and encouraging, that many will take the time to pay their respects at the funeral home and cemetery tomorrow, to give the young man a fitting welcome home.
The funeral home is here.
Cave Hill Cemetery is here.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
A Heroine For Our Day: Eileen Nearne, British Spy In WWII France
As we are treated to the daily avalanche of words, sounds, and images lionizing public women like Lady Gaga, MichelleMaBelle, BigSis, Eileen Kagan, Oprah(how can we forget Oprah?)--the depressing list just goes on and on, OS hopes we'll take a moment to remember a very private woman, Eileen Nearne, whose service and sacrifices made it possible for us to live in a world not run by the Nazis.
From the New York Times Obituaries this week:
After she died earlier this month, a frail 89-year-old alone in a flat in the British seaside town of Torquay, Eileen Nearne, her body undiscovered for several days, was listed by local officials as a candidate for what is known in Britain as a council burial, or what in the past was called a pauper’s grave.
But after the police looked through her possessions, including a Croix de Guerre medal awarded to her by the French government after World War II, the obscurity Ms. Nearne had cultivated for decades began to slip away.
Known to her neighbors as an insistently private woman who loved cats and revealed almost nothing about her past, she has emerged as a heroine in the tortured story of Nazi-occupied France, one of the secret agents who helped prepare the French resistance for the D-Day landings in June 1944.
On Tuesday, the anonymity that Ms. Nearne had cherished in life was denied her in death. A funeral service in Torquay featured a military bugler and piper and an array of uniformed mourners. A red cushion atop her coffin bore her wartime medals. Eulogies celebrated her as one of 39 British women who were parachuted into France as secret agents by the Special Operations Executive, a wartime agency known informally as “Churchill’s secret army,” which recruited more than 14,000 agents to conduct espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines.
The rest of the story is harrowing, as she heroically endured suffering for her nation and for freedom. In real ways, she never recovered from the experience, and her death at age eighty-nine was a release from suffering.
OS sits here, able to live his wonderful life in the US, because English women like Eileen faithfully served during their lifetimes.
It receives so little mention these days, but there is a large quiet slice of British society that has always quietly gone about its business of living with great courage and generosity in the face of daunting odds. It continues quietly today, and as a matter of fact, OS was the direct recipient of some of that grace this morning. Someday, in about five years, OS will be able to tell this remarkable story. For now, only silence will do.
Yes, we've got us a biiig economy problem, but a bigger cultural problem, which has to be tackled before the economy has a chance of turning around.
It's about the culture we choose to build by the lives we lead, and the heroes we emulate.
It's the culture.
It's the culture.
It's the culture.
OS prays daily that the Eileens of this world will prevail over the Lady Gagas. His children's futures depend upon how we choose.
From the New York Times Obituaries this week:
After she died earlier this month, a frail 89-year-old alone in a flat in the British seaside town of Torquay, Eileen Nearne, her body undiscovered for several days, was listed by local officials as a candidate for what is known in Britain as a council burial, or what in the past was called a pauper’s grave.
But after the police looked through her possessions, including a Croix de Guerre medal awarded to her by the French government after World War II, the obscurity Ms. Nearne had cultivated for decades began to slip away.
Known to her neighbors as an insistently private woman who loved cats and revealed almost nothing about her past, she has emerged as a heroine in the tortured story of Nazi-occupied France, one of the secret agents who helped prepare the French resistance for the D-Day landings in June 1944.
On Tuesday, the anonymity that Ms. Nearne had cherished in life was denied her in death. A funeral service in Torquay featured a military bugler and piper and an array of uniformed mourners. A red cushion atop her coffin bore her wartime medals. Eulogies celebrated her as one of 39 British women who were parachuted into France as secret agents by the Special Operations Executive, a wartime agency known informally as “Churchill’s secret army,” which recruited more than 14,000 agents to conduct espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines.
The rest of the story is harrowing, as she heroically endured suffering for her nation and for freedom. In real ways, she never recovered from the experience, and her death at age eighty-nine was a release from suffering.
OS sits here, able to live his wonderful life in the US, because English women like Eileen faithfully served during their lifetimes.
It receives so little mention these days, but there is a large quiet slice of British society that has always quietly gone about its business of living with great courage and generosity in the face of daunting odds. It continues quietly today, and as a matter of fact, OS was the direct recipient of some of that grace this morning. Someday, in about five years, OS will be able to tell this remarkable story. For now, only silence will do.
Yes, we've got us a biiig economy problem, but a bigger cultural problem, which has to be tackled before the economy has a chance of turning around.
It's about the culture we choose to build by the lives we lead, and the heroes we emulate.
It's the culture.
It's the culture.
It's the culture.
OS prays daily that the Eileens of this world will prevail over the Lady Gagas. His children's futures depend upon how we choose.
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