I Talked To A Man Today...on The Topic, Of: Great Men, And, Great Women

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

or 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 o

n 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 is 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.








COMMENTS:

• Michel Tessier
  We need to believe as that Man explained so well !
  
• Dee D Williams
  This conversation I have had with both my father and my father in law.....
  both now deceased....both were incredible amazing Real men......
  the behavior of our youth today is an embarrassment
  • 
    John Hackett
    They were real men and we honored them and respected them,
    they knew what real sacrifice was and they never complained about it,
    they got the job done. They were great men

 

Reported dead 36 years ago, Richard Spark is today an 82-year-old mechanic and still hard at work - ABC News

VIDEO

View: https://youtu.be/VA4_gIYJD8U


ARTICLE:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08...s-36-years-after-being-declared-dead/12530928