My all-time favorite joke is this one I heard Red Skelton tell on his television show 50 years ago:
A spaceship from Mars lands on earth. Two Martians get out, look around, and start walking up the street. They see a parking meter, and one Martian turns to the other and says, "Do you have change for a hern?"
Maybe it's an acquired taste. I think it is hilarious, but then I am weird. I like weird movies, too, really quirky ones like Harold And Maude and Big Fish and Raising Arizona, and I like weird television series like Twin Peaks and Six Feet Under and Northern Exposure..
Younger readers, if there are any, have no idea what I'm talking about. Suffice it to say that I told you I am weird.
I have dubbed this week Civil War Week because (a) 164 years ago today on April 12, 1861, the American Civil War began when Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, South Carolina; (b) 160 years ago this past Wednesday on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in Appomattox, Virginia, bringing an end to the Civil War; and (c) also 160 years ago this week, on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth assassinated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.
In between were famous battles and sieges with names like Manassas (Bull Run), Vickburg, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, Atlanta, and on and on. Over 698,000 Americans lost their lives at a time when the nation's population was 31,443,321 according to the census of 1860. Some modern research concludes that a more accurate estimate is closer to 750,000 with a range from 650,000 to 850,000. According to the National Park Service, there were 642,427 Union casualties, including 110,100 killed in battle and 224,580 deaths from diseases like dysentery and typhoid, and that there were 483,026 Confederate casualties with 94,000 killed in battle and 164,000 deaths from disease. Whatever the actual numbers were, around 2% of the total U.S. population at the time perished in the Civil War.
By contrast, the U.S. casualty figures for World War II are 416,800 military personnel killed and 671,278 wounded. More than 16 million Americans served in the armed forces during World War II. Since the U.S. population in 1940 was 132,164,569 the deaths of Americans in World War II represented 0.003% of the nation.
World War II casualties in the United Kingdom were 383,600 military deaths and 450,700 civilian deaths according to one chart. Germany's figures are staggering, 5,533,000 military deaths and 6,600,000 to 8,800,000 civilian deaths. A very large proportion of the civilian deaths were victims of the Holocaust carried out by the leaders of the Nazi regime. In the Pacific, Japan's figures are 2,120,000 military deaths and 2,600,000 to 3,100,000 civilian deaths, of which several hundred thousand perished when the U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on Yokohama and Nagasaki.
As General William Tecumseh Sherman once said, "War is hell."
I love the old spiritual song that goes, "I'm gonna lay down my burdens down by the riverside, down by the riverside, down by the riverside. I'm gonna lay down my burdens down by the riverside, ain't gonna study war no more."
Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World War II. Show all posts
Saturday, April 12, 2025
Saturday, September 20, 2014
No matter how they change her, I’ll remember her that way
In four remarkable posts, the lovely Vagabonde (who lives only a few miles from me over in Marietta) has described the liberation of Paris in August 1944 through the eyes of one who was there -- herself. She was four years old at the time.
You may be amazed at what you read and see.
Recollection: The Liberation of Paris in August 1944 (part 1)
(posted August 24, 2014)
Recollection: The Liberation of Paris in August 1944 (part 2)
(posted September 1, 2014)
Recollection: The Liberation of Paris in August 1944 (part 3)
(posted September 9, 2014)
Recollection: The Liberation of Paris in August 1944 (final part)
(posted September 16, 2014)
You should take the time to read all four posts. You may learn a few things you never knew.
In other news, our firstborn turns 50 years of age today. When he was born, disposable diapers did not exist. They were not invented until our third child came along. All diapers were cloth, which necessitated the buying of a plastic lidded diaper pail to keep soiled diapers in until we could wash them and hang them out to dry and collect them from the line and fold them into neat stacks. What I'm trying to say, and not doing a very good job of it, is simply this: No matter how we changed him, we’ll remember him that way.
You may be amazed at what you read and see.
Recollection: The Liberation of Paris in August 1944 (part 1)
(posted August 24, 2014)
Recollection: The Liberation of Paris in August 1944 (part 2)
(posted September 1, 2014)
Recollection: The Liberation of Paris in August 1944 (part 3)
(posted September 9, 2014)
Recollection: The Liberation of Paris in August 1944 (final part)
(posted September 16, 2014)
You should take the time to read all four posts. You may learn a few things you never knew.
In other news, our firstborn turns 50 years of age today. When he was born, disposable diapers did not exist. They were not invented until our third child came along. All diapers were cloth, which necessitated the buying of a plastic lidded diaper pail to keep soiled diapers in until we could wash them and hang them out to dry and collect them from the line and fold them into neat stacks. What I'm trying to say, and not doing a very good job of it, is simply this: No matter how we changed him, we’ll remember him that way.
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Gaza is child’s play compared to World War II
There has been much in the news lately about what is termed Israel’s “disproportionate response” to the firing of 3,000 rockets by Hamas from the Gaza Strip into Israel over the last four weeks (my numbers may not be accurate) .
Disproportionate response? Really?
Here’s food for thought from a website called nucleardarkness.org:
“On August 6, 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was destroyed by a nuclear weapon, an atomic bomb dropped by the United States. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki; five days after that, Japan unconditionally surrendered to the United States, bringing an end to World War II.
“The atomic bombs killed several hundred thousand people, many instantly in the nuclear fire, many later with burns, injuries and radiation sickness, and still many others, over the years, with cancers and birth defects. These deaths continue to this day. Like most of the cities bombed in World War II, the majority of the inhabitants were women, children and the elderly.
“Before the war began, bombing cities was considered an act of total barbarism; there were no “conventional bombs” and it certainly was not considered “conventional” to target civilian populations for mass destruction. But this ideal was shattered early in the war, and eventually all sides engaged in mass bombing raids against cities and civilians.
“After the Nazis conducted their massive bombing raids against London, the British retaliated by developing incendiary bombs, fire-bombs designed to burn down cities. British and American bombers dropped these bombs on five German cities, killing hundreds of thousands of German civilians in Hamburg, Dresden, Kassel, Darmstadt, and Stuttgart. In March, 1945, the U.S. fire-bombed the city of Tokyo, killing at least 100,000 people.
“By the time the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, 50 million people had already died in World War II. The bombing/murder of civilian populations had occurred so many times that it was no longer even regarded as unusual. This is perhaps the greatest tragedy of the war, and it set the stage for the Cold War and the nuclear arms race that followed.”
And among those 50 million, let us not forget, were six million Jews in ovens and gas chambers.
That’s the thing about war. Eventually you do what is necessary to bring it to an end. On his television program last Saturday, Mike Huckabee reminded Americans that at Hiroshima and Nagasaki 50 people were killed for every life that was lost at Pearl Harbor.
In another era Theodore Roosevelt said, “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” Sometimes you can’t walk quite so softly, and sometimes it actually is necessary to use the stick.
Might may not make right, but might is often what is required to bring violence to an end.
When viewed through the long lens of history, the outcry against Israel this month, particularly from some quarters of the U.S and the U.K., seems to be pots calling the kettle black.
Disproportionate response? Really?
Here’s food for thought from a website called nucleardarkness.org:
“On August 6, 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was destroyed by a nuclear weapon, an atomic bomb dropped by the United States. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki; five days after that, Japan unconditionally surrendered to the United States, bringing an end to World War II.
“The atomic bombs killed several hundred thousand people, many instantly in the nuclear fire, many later with burns, injuries and radiation sickness, and still many others, over the years, with cancers and birth defects. These deaths continue to this day. Like most of the cities bombed in World War II, the majority of the inhabitants were women, children and the elderly.
“Before the war began, bombing cities was considered an act of total barbarism; there were no “conventional bombs” and it certainly was not considered “conventional” to target civilian populations for mass destruction. But this ideal was shattered early in the war, and eventually all sides engaged in mass bombing raids against cities and civilians.
“After the Nazis conducted their massive bombing raids against London, the British retaliated by developing incendiary bombs, fire-bombs designed to burn down cities. British and American bombers dropped these bombs on five German cities, killing hundreds of thousands of German civilians in Hamburg, Dresden, Kassel, Darmstadt, and Stuttgart. In March, 1945, the U.S. fire-bombed the city of Tokyo, killing at least 100,000 people.
“By the time the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, 50 million people had already died in World War II. The bombing/murder of civilian populations had occurred so many times that it was no longer even regarded as unusual. This is perhaps the greatest tragedy of the war, and it set the stage for the Cold War and the nuclear arms race that followed.”
And among those 50 million, let us not forget, were six million Jews in ovens and gas chambers.
That’s the thing about war. Eventually you do what is necessary to bring it to an end. On his television program last Saturday, Mike Huckabee reminded Americans that at Hiroshima and Nagasaki 50 people were killed for every life that was lost at Pearl Harbor.
In another era Theodore Roosevelt said, “Walk softly and carry a big stick.” Sometimes you can’t walk quite so softly, and sometimes it actually is necessary to use the stick.
Might may not make right, but might is often what is required to bring violence to an end.
When viewed through the long lens of history, the outcry against Israel this month, particularly from some quarters of the U.S and the U.K., seems to be pots calling the kettle black.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
All I have is a voice
Seventy-three years ago this week, World War II began. A few weeks later, this poem appeared:
September 1, 1939
by W. H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
I know who Thucydides was but without investigating further I have no clue what mad Nijinsky wrote about Diaghilev. In one sense, this poem is frozen in time and speaks to a particular historical event. In another sense, it is as current as the headlines and newscasts of today.
September 1, 1939
by W. H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
I know who Thucydides was but without investigating further I have no clue what mad Nijinsky wrote about Diaghilev. In one sense, this poem is frozen in time and speaks to a particular historical event. In another sense, it is as current as the headlines and newscasts of today.
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