Posted by
Bill Crawford on Thursday, June 11, 2009 5:24:59 PM
The veterans of the last World War are fewer each year.
The world is overdue for a similar housecleaning. Our civilization was in a dark and crazy place in 1940, at the end of a long world wide Depression and dictatorships taking over large parts of Europe, Africa and Asia. By the time the Japanese Emporer left the deck of the USS Missouri in September, 1945, the old Colonial order was in smoking ruins and tens of millions of dead bodies lay among it.
The egocentric Baby Boomers have been smart enough to take pains to pay tribute to the generation that did the grunt work for all that. They were in their twenties when the smoke cleared, and they took over the world soon after.
They are all out of power now, without influence politically, economically and socially. Their Boomer children pull all the strings. This Boomer has already started to show his children how, without them, we might all be speaking German today.
One of the recognitions of this attrition in recent years was that at the annual Normandy reunions, the first rows of chairs were left open for the veterans and their families, to ease the path for the ever increasing number of wheelchairs, oxygen tanks and slower moving uniforms that were attending.
Not this year. The first seats were left for the Obama retinue, with their Obama for President hats and pins. For somebody who seems to know all the right moves, this guy sure puts up some bricks on the open court.
So, here I am, an American, apologizing to the world for American arrogance. I am so sorry that you all have to put up with what we elected last year. Some of us are doing our best to make amends. We'll talk in 2012.