GV Jack
Snorin God
LITTLE DID THEY KNOW
I spent a good deal of time yesterday and last night reflecting on seventy-one years ago that date. It was a few weeks before my seventh birthday, but I remember certain aspects of it, clearly.
I was awakened by my mother to get dressed and ready to go to Sunday school. My mother was a Methodist and my father was a free agent. That is, he went to whichever church the wedding or funeral was being held. I hated Sunday school because I always ended up with red and chaffed inner thighs. Any who were forced to wear corduroy knickers know what I mean.
Sunday school was followed by the trip to my grandfather and grandmother’s for the traditional Sunday dinner. My two brothers and I sat by dutifully while the old folks had their drinks. This was followed by dinner at which time my grandparents would commence to curse each other in German. The wine had a heady effect on their behavior. I had the ability to curse in German before I could in English.
After dinner was a sit down and let it all settle. The Germans have a penchant for eating well, too much and often.
It was then the world changed. I remember the old folks faces when the radio blared the news. My mother was moved to tears thinking of those poor boys that perished. Little did they know what the future held for them and all of us.
Little did my grandfather know that he was dying from cancer. Little did my father know that his little twelve man machine shop, started at the height of the Depression, would become a sixteen hundred man, two plant facility manufacturing aircraft sub-assemblies and parts for the atomic bomb. Little did my two cousins and my brother know they would end up, one a Signal Corps scout on New Guiney, one a top turret gunner on a B-24 in the South Pacific and one a seaman on the aircraft carrier Manila Bay on east coast patrol. Little did they know they would return intact and how many wouldn’t return at all.
They’re all gone now. Mine that is. The last of those brave folks, men and women who saved ourc ountry are gone or going at the rate of hundreds per day. They are called the greatest generation, but they would totally deny that. They felt they were just doing what they had to do. My brother would be eighty-six today. He lied about his age and joined the Navy without my folks knowing it until he was about to leave for Great Lakes. My cousins were of age and volunteered. Little did they know.
Little did they know that in the future a president of the Untied States would be compelled to say, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” Little did they know that,that spirit, the ideal they fought and died for, would slowly and certainly fade away like the old soldiers.
Little did they know and oh my God, how much we think we know, but how little we know.
