The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

History

The Last Surviving US WW I Vet

We owe him and our other vets a debt of gratitude.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Frank Buckles considered it his duty to represent his fellow soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day.”I have to,” he told CNN, “because I’m the last living member of Americans” who fought in what was called The Great War.

Buckles, 107, who is the sole living U.S. World War I veteran, attended ceremonies Tuesday at the grave of Gen. John Pershing, the top U.S. commander in that war.

He was present for the first Veterans Day in 1918 — though it was originally called Armistice Day — that marked the end of WWI.

Buckles was warmly greeted with standing applause by those in uniform and others who had gathered for the commemoration, but he said he did not think the fuss was about him.
“I can see what they’re honoring, the veterans of World War I.”

“Time has passed very quickly to me,” he said after a wreath-laying. “I’ve had a lot of activity in the last 90 years.”

Kristallnacht

It is 70 years since the Kristallnacht Pogrom.

“The Kristallnacht Pogrom was an organized pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria that occurred on November 9–10, 1938. Kristallnacht is also known as the November Pogrom, “Night of Broken Glass,” and “Crystal Night.” Orchestrated by the Nazis in retaliation for the assassination of a German embassy official in Paris by a seventeen-year-old Jewish youth named Herchel Grynzspan, 1,400 synagogues and 7,000 businesses were destroyed, almost 100 Jews were killed, and 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. German Jews were
subsequently held financially responsible for the destruction wrought upon their
property during this pogrom.”

Other links to posts/articles about Kristallnacht:

Rubicon 3
Crown Heights Info
Israel At Level Ground
CNN
Jewlicious
Leora

On a side note it is worth mentioning that they discovered the construction plans for Auschwitz.

Why Do People Kill Each Other

Earlier today my son asked me to explain to him what war is like and why people kill each other. It is a hell of a question and one that he has asked before. I am not a soldier. I haven’t been to war.

I have been in a number of hairy situations. I have seen the after effects of a bombing and have been in the E.R. when they have brought in shooting victims. I have been in a number of fist fights, been hit with brooms, rocks and a chain, but never shot. Not that I am complaining, I am not.

I can’t say that I believe that you have to be a vet to explain why people go to war either. I can offer descriptions of what war is like based upon things I have read or heard, but fortunately do not have any first hand experience. The closest thing I have got is what I have seen in films.

If push comes to shove I’ll tell you that I believe that sometimes you have to fight and that there are wars that are necessary. I am not a peacenik, by any means. But when it comes to discussing this with the kids I am cautious.

Today is the 64th anniversary of D-Day. I wrote a post that covered some of the history in more detail than here. If you are interested you can find it here. We are indebted to those men.

Anyway, be it coincidence or otherwise today is the day that he hammered me with questions about war and why people kill each other. He is all of 7.5 so I wrestled with how much to tell him, how sophisticated I should be in my response.

He has lost so much of his innocence about the world. He knows that bad people sometimes do things to children and that not every marriage lasts. He knows that some people steal and that life doesn’t always have a happy ending. So providing him with some information is not going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back either.

I did my best to explain that sometimes people just can’t get along and that sometimes they fight in a way that isn’t nice. I told him that I thought that war should be a last resort and that you should try and avoid it.

But I also told him that if you have to fight to defend yourself you have an obligation to do so in a manner that takes care of the situation, short term band aids are a poor solution.

He nodded his head and told me that he thought he understood. He explained that one of his classmates parents had split up. I asked him what he meant and he gave me a perfectly suitable description of a couple who have divorced.

I nodded my head and asked him to continue. He explained that Tommy’s parents couldn’t get along any more and that they had decided to live in different houses. And then he told me that Tommy said that he was much happier because his folks didn’t fight anymore, that they were friends now.

Just as I thought I had skated by and managed to avoid spending the evening discussing war he came back to it. He wanted to know how his grandfathers had managed not to be killed. I reassured him that going to war wasn’t a death sentence, but that you really didn’t want to have to go unless you had to.

He sighed and told me that he was happy to hear that. And then he asked me to promise that I wouldn’t get killed fighting a war either. I smiled and told him that they didn’t like making guys my age soldiers.

Confession: I have no interest in being a soldier, but I hated saying “guys my age” as if we are all that old. We’re not. Compared to so many others I am just a babe in the woods.

Oy, I don’t like 39 all that much. Sure it is better than the alternative, but…

Will Smith- Hitler Tried To Do The RIght Thing

I have been a fan of Will Smith for a long time. I think that he is a fine actor and he has always seemed to be a good guy. Until today I don’t remember ever reading anything about him that made me shake my head in disgust.

But the comments he made in a recent interview make me wonder what the hell is wrong with him. Take a look at this interview:

Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good.

“Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today’,” said Will. “I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good’. Stuff like that just needs reprogramming.

I agree that most people are good. I don’t believe in original sin or the idea that we are all naturally sinners. But I also believe that there are evil people in the world and Hitler ranks right up there.

It is patently wrong to try and excuse Hitler’s actions by saying he did what he thought was right. You don’t excuse the rapist by saying that she asked for it and you don’t excuse mass murderers by saying that they thought that they were doing the right thing.

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