Text 20329, 215 rader
Skriven 2005-12-29 13:51:30 av Carol Shenkenberger (6:757/1)
Kommentar till text 20312 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: Re: Lack of Gratitude
=============================
*** Quoting Michiel van der Vlist from a message to Carol Shenkenberger ***
> That or misguided.
MvdV> He is now responding to you too. I'll let you judge for yourself...
So far he's been polite with me. A little frustrated, but polite ;-)
> All I know is he's upsetting folks more than even Roy
MvdV> He is different. Contrary to Roy he avoids the ad hominem.
That is true.
MvdV> Yes, I noticed. And I suppose you noticed the swipe about "just a radi
MvdV> operator who lets other does the dirty work"....
Not fully, I have taken to just rapid scanning most of this topic. The 'Radio
operator' on a ship runs the communications and is hardly an unimportant
position. It's as critical as the weapons systems. Fully manned at all times
which isnt true of weapons systems in calmer locations. (Thats as true today
as it was back then).
I've only heard of Radio being evacuated once and I was there. We had a toxic
gas leak but were still in cell phone range. The leak was right outside radio
and we had some tense minutes. I called the CSOOW and told them I had taken
the radio crew down to just my 2 most capable and myself and we needed SCBAs
fast (Breathing apparatus, looks like the stuff divers use a bit). Word came
back to empty radio via the Captain about 2 minutes later (as I was running
back in after checking things were sealed up right). Sadly we lost a crew
member who was on the other side of the radio bulkhead (wall). They arent
sure if he slipped and hit his head then the fumes got him, or if he was
knocked out by the fumes and hit his head on the way down.
We rode the ship back in with most of the crew on the flight deck. Grin, I
wasnt so lucky as I was in the repair locker used for that toxic gas bit.
(Repair locker is hard to describe but it's where you have all the special
gear and trained people to combat a ship emergency, several of them sprinkled
about the ship). Anyways, I was in the thick of it. Not a fun time at all.
MvdV>> I just reread my aunt's diary. She lived in Oosterbeek during t
MvdV>> of Arnhem. In September 1944 she was right in the middle of a w
> I'd love some excerpts from that if you would be willing?
MvdV> I'd be willing. Actually my plan is to put the whole ting on my web si
MvdV> but there are a few problems to overcome. The original is in Dutch and
<snip but interesting!>. Ah thats ok, I was just curious if you could give
some info on what she had to say but dont want to cause some copywrite
problems or anything.
MvdV> haven't got permission to publish. Yet...
> I beleive you've made reference to starving folks, possibly
> eating tulip bulbs to stay alive?
MvdV> Yes, people ate everything that was at all edible and that they could
MvdV> get their hands on. Tulip bulbs were indeed eaten. Not in Oosterbeek h
MvdV> but my other grandparents who lived in The Hague have indeed eaten tul
MvdV> bulbs during the winter of 1944.
It sounds so very odd but if edible, definately something people would have to
do. I didnt know you could eat them before I saw that reference some years
back to it.
> God has graced my life in that I've never been in any real
> hardship.
MvdV> Neither have I. I did have some health problems in my youth due to the
MvdV> shortage of certain foods after the war.
Milk and calcium lacks possibly?
MvdV>> They walked 20 km to get three or four patatoes.
> That seems hard though as they'd expend more energy than the
> potatoes would give them unless they were really big ones.
MvdV> I have been wondering about that too.
Grin, could have been a bit of exagguration there on their part, that or they
got more than 3-4 potatoes out of the deal. I could easily see one person
walking and bringing back a sack of which their share might be that though.
> I hear you and agree. I see no reason why you should feel
> 'grateful' to me because my father fought in the battle of the
> bulge (Born of german parents on Parris Island just after
> crossing, fluent german, radio operator who translated what
> the germans were saying for the US troops). Why should you?
> He was just one of many people who were doing as they were
> told, and as he thought best.
MvdV> Now, when you tell it like that, I can't help feeling *respect* for yo
(your father).
Yeah, he was a good guy overall. Radio operator also as you'll note ;-) Army
though, not Navy like me and the other fellow in that post I barely scanned
(sorry, might have been your family? Might have been someone else though,
didnt track it well enough).
Dad was fully fluent in German, English, and apparently somewhat conversational
in some other languages but I dont know for sure. Mom said something about
Spanish (I can validate he spoke it in later years but do not know about then)
and some other which may have been Polish or one nearish that area of Europe.
Too bad his language gift genes didnt come down to me but my brother and
sister are both multi-lingual and I did some browsing of some .ESP echos and
can almost make sense of them still after 5 years of not having heard spanish.
Cant speak it worth a damn but can make some sense of it when I read it. I'm
just not as good at it as my brother and sister.
MvdV> Just like the people here. Those who were there don't very much like t
MvdV> talk about it.
Yes, Dad was like that.
I havent mentioned my husband very often in sysop echos. Don is retired Navy
who also spent a tour in Vietnam (he's a bit older than me). He has PTSD
(Post Tramatic Stress Syndrome). He never speaks of Vietnam much but when it
comes up he gets all 'shell shocky looking'. In our early days, he used to
still have problems with flashbacks. 2 weeks ago at our Xmas party (ship
party, probably 500 people and kids there) he _had_ to leave. Just too many
people and noise for him to handle. He *hates* the 4th of July with a passion
and i used to have to take leave then to be sure he wasnt alone. He's better
about that now but then, the fireworks are well away from where we live and
just pretty so he grits his teeth and will take Charlotte downstairs to see
them if i am not at home. I recal our first 4th of July. He literally hid
under the bed and wouldnt come out for 2 hours.
MvdV>> of the future.
> Exactly. It's over. While I would be curious to know what my
> father enountered, it is too late. (Rest in Peace Dad, 2001).
MvdV> Same here. My father died nearly two years ago. He once told me
MvdV> how after the failure of the battle of Arnhem he tried to cross the ri
MvdV> Rhine to get to the liberated southern part but failed. And that's all
MvdV> he ever said about it. My mother who lived in the Hauge was a bit more
MvdV> talkative. She told me about the tulip bulbs and all the other things
I remember. I also remember some IDIOT posted a flame at you at just the wrong
moment and a bunch of us jumped all over him. Some really ugly thing about
your Dad and all that.
> used by Hitler at one stage and is now a supermarket (bulding
> demolished long ago).
MvdV> Interesting indeed....
Yeah and the money came in handy <g>. I was told it was a very famous hotel
just on the other side of the line in Berlin. Some memory fragment about the
Russians also using it so maybe the 'russian quarter' but I dont have an
address or anything like that.
MvdV>> Not only should we not expect strong feelings, we should not en
MvdV>> those feelings. We should not burden the next generation with t
MvdV>> of the past. They have their own future to make.
> Correct. Charlotte knows a bit of this history, as far as it
> goes but as you can tell, there is no 'angst' passed on with it.
MvdV> Very good.
Smile, no point in it. History can teach us valid lessons but teaching a child
to perpetuate 'hate' over long ago things is just wrong.
> Canadians. My own knowledge of history is not that good. Fact
> is 'history' is a lighter subject I think in USA schools?
MvdV> Frank is 80+ years old. At the end of WWII he was past schoolgoing age
MvdV> So wherever he learned of WWII history, it was not at school.
True, but he saw in real life, only that slice afforded to him. He would have
been with a big army unit so from his POV, there were Americans all over the
place liberating things. The US Press would have concentrated on 'feel good'
stories as well (and they did, old articles show this clearly). The USA didnt
really have a 'Propaganda Ministry' but the effect of the newspapers and other
things were slanted to us looking good and for all to add to the war effort.
Still, we had our own 'Quizlings' (sp? It's after some person actually but
came to just mean 'collaborator') and there were many 'investigations' of
such.
He hasnt brought up how the USA took the Japanese Americans (most of them
citizens of the 3rd or futher generation) and put them in concentration camps
of our own. That and the Germans may have gotten their own ideas of Auswitz
from our own past history of Andersonville (Civil war place, horrendous but
the only thing they lacked was a Doctor Mendele and a gas chamber).
If you havent run into Andersonville, it's a truely sad part of American
history that we'd all like to forget ever happened and have done so well, that
probably most of the Z1 posters here have no clue what I am talking about.
Photography was in it's infancy then but there are pictures of people so
skeletal, you cant believe they were still breathing.
MvdV>> The more they demand gratitude, the less they will get.
MvdV>> You Carol are wise to generally avoid these discussions.
> Hehe well, I generally do. But, even I can see Frank's
> bashings and have to speak up.
MvdV> And now that you did, you too became a target...
Grin, wait til the folks see my comment on the Civil war camps we had!
Sometimes the best way to not be an asshole is to show the darker side of
one's own land. While philanthropy is alive and well in the USA, so is
prejudice and fanaticism.
xxcarol
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