Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire I TALKED TO A MAN TODAY

It's very rare that I do anything but delete messages that are forwarded to me by email, but my 84 year old uncle sent me this this morning. Seems applicable.:


I talked to a man today

I talked with a man today, an 80+ year old man. I asked him if there was anything I can get him while this Coronavirus scare was gripping America.

He simply smiled, looked away and said:

"Let me tell you what I need! I need to believe, at some point, this country my generation fought for... I need to believe this nation we handed safely to our children and their children...

I need to know this generation will quit being a bunch of sissies...that they respect what they've been given...that they've earned what others sacrificed for."

I wasn't sure where the conversation was going or if it was going anywhere at all. So, I sat there, quietly observing.

"You know, I was a little boy during WWII. Those were scary days. We didn't know if we were going to be speaking English, German or Japanese at the end of the war. There was no certainty, no guarantees like Americans enjoy today.

And no home went without sacrifice or loss. Every house, up and down every street, had someone in harm's way. Maybe their Daddy was a soldier, maybe their son was a sailor, maybe it was an uncle. Sometimes it was the whole damn family...fathers, sons, uncles...

Having someone, you love, sent off to war...it wasn't less frightening than it is today. It was scary as Hell. If anything, it was more frightening. We didn't have battle front news. We didn't have email or cellphones. You sent them away and you hoped...you prayed. You may not hear from them for months, if ever. Sometimes a mother was getting her son's letters the same day Dad was comforting her over their child's death.

And we sacrificed. You couldn't buy things. Everything was rationed. You were only allowed so much milk per month, only so much bread, toilet paper. EVERYTHING was restricted for the war effort. And what you weren't using, what you didn't need, things you threw away, they were saved and sorted for the war effort. My generation was the original recycling movement in America.

And we had viruses back then...serious viruses. Things like polio, measles, and such. It was nothing to walk to school and pass a house or two that was quarantined. We didn't shut down our schools. We didn't shut down our cities. We carried on, without masks, without hand sanitizer. And do you know what? We persevered. We overcame. We didn't attack our President, we came together. We rallied around the flag for the war. Thick or thin, we were in it to win. And we would lose more boys in an hour of combat than we lose in entire wars today."

He slowly looked away again. Maybe I saw a small tear in the corner of his eye. Then he continued:

"Today's kids don't know sacrifice. They think a sacrifice is not having coverage on their phone while they freely drive across the country. Today's kids are selfish and spoiled. In my generation, we looked out for our elders. We helped out with single moms who's husbands were either at war or dead from war. Today's kids rush the store, buying everything they can...no concern for anyone but themselves. It's shameful the way Americans behave these days. None of them deserve the sacrifices their granddads made.

So, no I don't need anything. I appreciate your offer but, I know I've been through worse things than this virus. But maybe I should be asking you, what can I do to help you? Do you have enough pop to get through this, enough steak? Will you be able to survive with 113 channels on your tv?"

I smiled, fighting back a tear of my own...now humbled by a man in his 80's. All I could do was thank him for the history lesson, leave my number for emergency and leave with my ego firmly tucked in my rear.

I talked to a man today. A real man. An American man from an era long gone and forgotten. We will never understand the sacrifices. We will never fully earn their sacrifices. But we should work harder to learn about them..learn from them...to respect them.

Had some beers in a bar on St. Patrick's day.

With a 88 year-old friend, was in Korea. Shook hands and set down.

Looked at me while the waitress was bringin our beers, and said: "Corona, my ass".

That’s good. Thanks.

When I crack open that bourbon bottle tonight, I will give a toast to that man. He is so right.

Thanks for posting, 280shooter.

My uncle was a Seabee who was in SE Asia before the war through near the end. He traveled on a civilian passport in the early days and worked with the U-2 program mapping the region. I believe he said that 1968 or 69 was the only year that he had to file taxes because he wasn't in theater. He retired as either a Navy Chief Warrant Officer 4 or 5. Couldn't go higher without a degree. He's a good man.

No offense but...somebody wrote that, but I highly doubt it was some eighty-year-old oldster.

Yep, COVID is nothing. The other generations had it harder, the next generation down from mine sucks ass and are a bunch of pansy ass fa ggots. Yada, yada...blah, blah.

Sorry in advance.

Thank you for posting that. I once knew a lot of people like that and they are mostly gone now. But thanks for the reminder about that common spirit they all had. I learned a lot from those people but I still need an occasional memory jog.

I posted it for perspective. As I said, I rarely do anything but delete forwarded emails, but the message seemed appropriate, regardless of who wrote it.

1939, year I was born April 8th, our whole family went to war in 1941, my mother and her sister, and 11 brother's, all went leaving behind 3 kids me and my cousin Annie, cousin Bob, to live with Grandma and Grandpa, on the family ranch, Bob and Annie, were both a couple of years older than me. we were Grandma and Grandpa's little helpers.
I remember listening to the war news on our old Philco, radio, Grandma, would read us the letters we got from my mother and the boy's as we called them, every thing was rationed, we were lucky we lived on a ranch, we had 3 milk cow's, pigs, rabbits, chickens, and lots of wild game, and a big victory garden, Grandma and a couple other lady's would get together and can food we put in our basement, we lived very well compared to most city people.

Our family started coming home in 1946, mother came back in 1948, I didn't know who she was, time's were different compared to now, I still have my ration card and some of mother's letters, and the front page of the Denver Post, with Wars Over !!! Rio7

I was born in 1938. My dad was exempt from the draft as his line of work was vital to the war effort. I lived in San Francisco and remember the black out shades, the air raid drills which came at some ungodly hours of the night. The shore batteries would fire off rounds and we never knew if it was another practice or the real deal. To this day the sound of an air raid siren still raises the hairs on the back of my neck, even when it's just in a war movie. Certain things you never forget.
Paul B.

A good one. Thanks

Me too, the other coast. Sat on my mom's lap during air raid drills, scared of aircraft engines. Concern for German subs, saboteurs. They caught several of them. Victory gardens.

Paul

I had history lessons, on WW2 and on back thru to the beginnings of this nation, and European first settlements here, growing up in VA .. my family was military, and in 1963, my dad was transferred to a 3 year assignment in England...

1963 was only 18 years after the end of WW2....England was still full of things from WW2, and in the town I lived in most of it, had two factories, that the remains were still standing in the 1960s, from when the factories had been bombed out during the Battle of Britain in 1940....

pretty much everyone my parents age, had lived thru the war...their parents had fought it, or had been part of the war effort in some way.. they were still finding unexploded bombs all the time when we lived there...

I heard many of the stories of my family's experiences from the War, and even WW 1 from my grand parents and aunts and uncles.. from both the home front and the combat fronts.. in the Pacific and in Europe...but it was even deeper living in England, which had been part of the battle front..

it formed much of who I am today... and I often get ridiculed over that, even here on the campfire..

yeah younger folks, even in their 40s, really don't have a clue of what survival is and was during those times...

There are 6 houses on our street.. first thing I did when all of this started is go knock on the door of each of our neighbors and gave them our family's phone numbers... and if they needed anything during all of this BS, or needed any assistance with anything, don't hesitate to give us a call...that is what people did back in WW2 and in the 50s when the nation was under some sort of social stress.. war etc...you helped one another.... not one of our neighbors responded by giving us their phone numbers..
evidently they don't understand people helping each other... maybe its just an east coast and midwest, down south thing... but they sure don't seem to understand it here on the left coast...

its all about themselves seem to be the underlying focus out this way...

too bad this nation has lost so much of what made it great.. people helping others...
people came together a lot more after 9/11 than they do now...people weren't self centered about themselves only...
and that was just 20 years ago.... now we have people getting into fist fights at the store just to make sure they have more toilet paper to wipe their asses than the next guy...

but now instead of helping each other, we have people arming themselves like crazy.. why because they are concerned it will get bad enough, society will be full of looters.... helping themselves by stealing from others...heck, people locally are even taking things out of other people's shopping carts at the store, before they even check out...

hers a nation situation with this corona virus... and now its being handled by the "its all about me" generation...

already eyeballed a couple of different folks who don't belong in this neighborhood, casing it out, for what I am sure is no good except to steal... since the cops aren't arresting people, so they don't have to care for them, if they happen to have this corona virus.. crooks are getting bolder than hell....

hell there have been idiots even out protesting in front of the hospital, concerning the hospital is spreading the corona virus.. and then that night someone did a drive by shooting out windows at the hospital...and had enough fun doing that, they went and shot up some businesses up the street.....

yeah, the enemy is within the borders of this nation anymore.. not like outside of the nation as it was in WW 2 or even after 9/11 just 20 years ago...