Wittpilot
February 23rd, 2009, 17:31
*warning...it's long..... but at least it's not political! lol*
So over the weekend, as I said in the other thread, I attended a banquet dinner for the volunteers that work on the B-17... Well they had a surprise guest speaker there that talked for just a short bit... but it was very moving... The gentleman was a pilot in the 301st in the 15th Air Force. He didn't say and I can't remember how many combat missions he had under his belt, but I knew he flew his allotment.
Nowmy wife & friends have always had a hard time understanding why exactly I spend a good amount of my life and free time getting involved in every way possible with B-17's, military history, and just about anything that goes along with that type of stuff. Well after the gentleman spoke for about half an hour to 45 mins... He said something that made my wife finally understand.....
He basically said...please note I am paraphrasing here....that if we, (we being the audience, and I believe younger generations in general) could do him just one favor... just one.... would be to remember.... he said it was not important if we remembered his name, his unit, what missions he flew.... but to always remember the men that took off..... flew into that bright blue sky, into enemy territory....... and never made it home.....
I know it made something click in my wife.... I saw her wipe her eyes several times... afterwards she looked me in the eyes and said..." I understand now..... I understand why this is important to you... " and then she realized that no matter what, there will never be another generation of Americans, and generations from other countries, like the generation of our grandparents....
It's why I do what I do.... I told her that WWII veterans die in the hundreds every day.... and with them, hundreds of stories... It angers me to no extent when I see many of the youth of today that have no conception of what many sacrificed so that they may live.... They have no idea who fought, who won, or what was at stake in the American Civil War...They could not tell me who Adolf Hitler was, who F.D.R. was... or what century Abraham Lincoln served as our President......
So I do what I do to not only honor those with us and those who didn't make it home, but to make sure that the next generation of Americans has the opportunity to know what they did.....
If you read the above, thank you for reading.... it was long...but I needed to say it...
"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "
-Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863
So over the weekend, as I said in the other thread, I attended a banquet dinner for the volunteers that work on the B-17... Well they had a surprise guest speaker there that talked for just a short bit... but it was very moving... The gentleman was a pilot in the 301st in the 15th Air Force. He didn't say and I can't remember how many combat missions he had under his belt, but I knew he flew his allotment.
Nowmy wife & friends have always had a hard time understanding why exactly I spend a good amount of my life and free time getting involved in every way possible with B-17's, military history, and just about anything that goes along with that type of stuff. Well after the gentleman spoke for about half an hour to 45 mins... He said something that made my wife finally understand.....
He basically said...please note I am paraphrasing here....that if we, (we being the audience, and I believe younger generations in general) could do him just one favor... just one.... would be to remember.... he said it was not important if we remembered his name, his unit, what missions he flew.... but to always remember the men that took off..... flew into that bright blue sky, into enemy territory....... and never made it home.....
I know it made something click in my wife.... I saw her wipe her eyes several times... afterwards she looked me in the eyes and said..." I understand now..... I understand why this is important to you... " and then she realized that no matter what, there will never be another generation of Americans, and generations from other countries, like the generation of our grandparents....
It's why I do what I do.... I told her that WWII veterans die in the hundreds every day.... and with them, hundreds of stories... It angers me to no extent when I see many of the youth of today that have no conception of what many sacrificed so that they may live.... They have no idea who fought, who won, or what was at stake in the American Civil War...They could not tell me who Adolf Hitler was, who F.D.R. was... or what century Abraham Lincoln served as our President......
So I do what I do to not only honor those with us and those who didn't make it home, but to make sure that the next generation of Americans has the opportunity to know what they did.....
If you read the above, thank you for reading.... it was long...but I needed to say it...
"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. "
-Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863