The Stories and Novels By Derek Ward
Thirty years ago, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds into its flight. Seven were killed.
This is perhaps the first memory where I remember where I was when I heard the news. I was in sixth grade, coming back from PE, when a teacher burst into the hall to tell us what happened. We watched the coverage for pretty much the rest of the day. A friend of mine was in Nature’s Classroom and actually saw the Y-shaped cloud.
Image is from CBS news.
America is a land of immigrants – and some of those immigrants have been people fleeing strife and persecution in their homelands. The Syrians are just the latest in a very long line of people coming to this nation because their homeland has gone to shit. With each new wave of immigration, there have been people who have screamed to close the borders, to limit the number of people coming in, that this new wave of immigration will be horrible for the nation. Look at what happened when the Irish, Chinese, Italians, Jews, Cubans, and Bosnians came to America over the last two hundred years.
Each wave, most of the people settled peacefully and assimilated. They worked and raised families. They added foods, words, and traditions to their local communities and the nation as a whole. And a small portion became criminals and terrorists. Yet, the nation has survived.
I don’t think most of the people opposing allowing the refugees in are doing so because of racism. They have legitimate safety concerns. For the other side to completely ignore those concerns is naive. However, I still believe that the good outweighs the bad, and that in a generation or two, the Syrians will just become another part of the American landscape.
You cannot exaggerate about the Marines. They are convinced to the point of arrogance that they are the most ferocious fighters on earth – and the amusing thing about it is that they are.
Father Kevin Kealy, 1st Marine Division Chaplain, Korean War
Next week is the USMC birthday.
Happy birthday Marines. Semper Fi
Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.
Todd Beamer, passenger on United 93
Fourteen years ago, we were violently shown the depths of human depravity, but also the heights of human courage and self-sacrifice.
I highly encourage you to watch United 93 if you haven’t already.
Seventy years ago today, the Japanese signed their unconditional surrender aboard the USS Missouri.
World War II is the greatest drama in human history, the biggest war ever and a true battle of good and evil. I imagine writers will continue to get stories from it, and readers will continue to love them, for many more years.
Ken Follet
I wonder how World War 2 will be viewed a century from now.
Thursday is the seventieth anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima with the second bomb being dropped on Nagasaki two days later. So, we’ll go with a Sabaton song about the event.
Lyrics in the YouTube video.
The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.
George Washington, Address to the Continental Army before the Battle of Long Island (27 August 1776)
We remember those who fought
and died winning and preserving our liberty.
Last Saturday was the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Battle of Berlin. I didn’t understand the true horror of the Eastern Front until Hardcore History’s “Ghosts of the Ostfront” series. To put it into perspective, most of the major battles on the Western Front would have been considered large skirmishes in the vicious fighting between the Soviets and the Nazis.
So, for this week, we turn to Sabaton for an appropriate song.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=95RFHR-8YuI
Lyrics in the YouTube post.