Free Republic

Every day, memories of World War II—its sights and sounds, its terrors and triumphs—disappear. Yielding to the inalterable process of aging, the men and women who fought and won the great conflict are now in their 90s or older. They are dying quickly—according to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 167,284 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are alive in 2022.

Ohio State lost a legend this week. Charles "Chuck" Csuri – a Buckeye football great, a World War II veteran and a pioneer in the field of computer art – died at the age of 99 on Sunday, Ohio State announced. Csuri was a three-year letterman for the Buckeye football team, playing for head coach Paul Brown from 1941-1943. Dubbed by Brown “the perfect tackle,” Csuri led Ohio State to its first national in 1942 and was named All-American and the team’s Most Valuable Player. He was the last living member of Ohio State's 1942 national championship team. After serving...

The Greatest generation, or G.I. generation, is generally defined as people born from 1901 to 1927; many of our parents populated that generation. The Baby Boomer generation was born between 1946 and 1964, after WWII and at the beginning of Vietnam. Both generations are being accosted, sometimes physically in blue check cities, but certainly psychologically and spiritually, by the Gen Z generation born between 1996 and 2013 and the late Millennial generation born from 1990-1996. New York Magazine’s Eric Levitz has identifies this group as America’s most socialist and misanthropic generation—dystopian socialists.  One only has to review the sickening recordings...

The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican group, launched an ad Sunday slamming President Trump over his response to the coronavirus pandemic and accusing him of risking the lives of the “Greatest Generation” of Americans. “It is both disheartening and disturbing that the generation we owe for bravely taking up arms and conquering fascism is now at risk of being extinguished by the authoritarian residing in our own White House,” Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, said in a statement. “There is absolutely no equivalency between American lives and our economy, especially those of the most hallowed generation of Americans...

In my post earlier today asking questions about the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, quite a few Freeepers judged him the worst president ever or one of the worst. (For some background to my post, please see this: https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2020/04/02/woodrow-wilson-was-he-a-father-of-the-greatest-generation-or-globalist-disaster/) A few people started debating who were the worst presidents ever. One courageous person put forward the name of POTUS 43 and wrote: “If George W. Bush isn’t the worst president in U.S. history, he’s certainly in the top two. We will pay for his errors for generations. In particular, Bush’s unnecessary invasion of Iraq: 1. Wasted blood and treasure. 2. Took...

On Friday, due to mounting fears about COVID-19, our university announced that it was suspending all on-site classes until April 1. A nursing student who is one of my teaching assistants in a chemistry lab commented that the fear radiated by the students was palpable. “Their freshman year experience was being taken away and many of them expressed they had a loved one who was particularly at risk.” The south Florida campus where I teach stretches over many acres. It is a lush, sub-tropical paradise of green spaces, palm trees and variegated shrubs in an explosion of colors. Our easternmost...

In the long record of American heroism in combat, few episodes capture the indomitable will and the stouthearted spirit of the American warrior better than the triumphs on the island of Iwo Jima in early 1945. Seventy-five years later, we pay tribute to the immeasurable sacrifice of those killed in action on Iwo Jima, and we honor the heroic efforts of all who took part in one of the most costly and significant battles in our country’s history. By February 1945, despite American forces possessing aerial and naval supremacy, the Japanese forces at Iwo Jima were well dug-in and prepared...

A young Instagram influencer has whinged that learning about World War 2 harms millennials’ mental health. Freddie Bentley, 22, said he thought the schools’ curriculum on the devastating conflict should be cut back because it was “so intense”. Bentley, who appeared on The Circle, told Good Morning Britain today: “It was a hard situation, World War 2, I don't want anyone to think I'm being disrespectful.” He added: “I remember learning it as a child thinking ‘Oh my God it's so intense’.” He thought that any mental health issues a youngster may have could be worsened by learning about the...

Seventy-five years have passed, but the heroism of the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy still resonates as strongly as it did that June Tuesday in 1944 when America awoke to the news.This will almost certainly be the last time our country will be able to commemorate such a milestone anniversary while the heroes who participated in the D-Day invasion are still here with us on Earth. Even the very youngest World War II veterans are now well into their 90s.The country and the world are blessed that more than 180 D-Day veterans were able to join President Trump...

The Ball Turret Gunner The near certainty the United States would be drawn into WW II prompted creation of an autonomous Army Air Force. Until the war in Europe began, standard doctrine gave an air corps had no mission beyond supporting the ground forces. Now air power advocates received the authority to prove the theory that bombers could win wars. The B-24 Liberator and B-17 Flying Fortress carried 10-13 .50cal machine guns for defense and the Norden bombsight for precision daylight attack. Under combat conditions, peacetime accuracy was never realized and bombers suffered horrendous losses until the P-51 Mustang could...

The Washington Post is discounting America’s win in World War Two because American forces were all “racists.” I guess that we now have to delete America’s part in World War Two from the history books to suit liberal sensibilities just like we are erasing statues to military people all across the nation. The attack on the Allied Forces in WWII came in an idiotic liberal article with the unwieldy title of, “Allied leaders were anti-Nazi, but not anti-racist. We’re now paying the price for their failure.” The article by a foaming-at-the-mouth lib named John Broich — who claims to be...

MIDDLETOWN, R.I. (WPRI) — The Rhode Island man who claimed to be the sailor kissing a nurse in an iconic image at the end of World War II has died. The Providence Journal reports George Mendonsa, 95, died at an assisted living facility in Middletown Sunday. Mendonsa was never able to convince LIFE magazine he was the sailor in the famous photo. However, recent facial recognition technology verified his lifelong claim.

The Duke of Cambridge today claimed today's mental health epidemic directly stems from his grandmother's generation and the stiff upper lip mentality maintained during World War II. Prince William made the comments as he joined New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at the Mental Health Matters meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier today. William, 37, said that people learned to bottle up problems from parents and grandparents who lived through World War II, such as the Queen who was a driver and mechanic with the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service and Prince Philip, a first lieutenant in the...

The geese, making their escape just before Christmas dinnerChristmas day was a yuge celebration of life with Raj’s family, and by yuge I mean 44 of us representing 3 generations all gathered at what used to be Dad’s house. Of course the 3 generational gathering was a little bittersweet as last year’s celebration included a fourth generation. But life marches on, and now we are the older generation. If we can manage to pass on a modicum of the Greatest Generation’s wisdom I think the world will be okay.  Now get about your Boxing Day chores and festivities. I think...

Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it “a date that will live in infamy.” But in Google-land, where every other esoteric anniversary/birthday on the face of our diverse, multi-cultural, all-inclusive planet is celebrated to much fanfare, they just couldn’t bring themselves to even mention it. It would probably be considered triggering and that might send the snowflakes to the streets again, screaming.Imagine what the world would be like today if the Greatest Generation had decided to hold a day of rage rather than fight the people who attacked us.  Imagine if Winston Churchill had told his countrymen to go “scream helplessly at...

Heaven has received another soul from the ranks of America's greatest generation. Master Sergeant William H. Holt of Inman, South Carolina passed on October 24th. He served with the US Army Air Corp as a crew member on A-20 attack bombers based in New Guinea. He was the grandfather of my son in law. Please keep his family in prayer and do not fail to give respect and thanks to his surviving comrades before it is too late.

Born in the 1930s and early 1940s, we exist as a very special age cohort. We are the “LAST ONES.” We are the last, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the war itself with fathers and uncles going off. We are the last to remember ration books for everything from sugar to shoes to stoves. We saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans. We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available. We are the last to hear Roosevelt’s radio assurances and to see gold stars in the front windows...

Born in the 1930s we exist as a very special age cohort. We are the “last ones.” We are the last, climbing out of the depression, who can remember the winds of war and the war itself with fathers and uncles going off. We are the last to remember ration books for everything from sugar to shoes to stoves. We saved tin foil and poured fat into tin cans. We saw cars up on blocks because tires weren’t available. My mother delivered milk in a horse drawn cart. We are the last to hear Roosevelt’s radio assurances and to see...

They were called Bob, Harry, Red, Leo, Dick and Mary. They trudged through the jungle on Guadalcanal, waded through mounds of volcanic ash on Iwo Jima, shivered miserably at a place called the Bulge and gave a dying GI life-saving plasma at a hospital in Italy. Some worked in the factories that churned out tanks and planes and fuel barrels 24/7, while others waged war with slide rules and chemistry beakers. They never complained because they knew the task at hand was so important that the future of the world rested in their hands. As Winston Churchill so eloquently put...

<p>Frederick R. "Fritz" Payne, a World War II fighter ace who left his mark on aviation and wartime history by shooting down six Japanese warplanes during the Battle of Guadalcanal, a bloody, months-long confrontation that helped change the course of the war, has died at age 104.</p>