Acknowledging My Father's WW II Service - And Granting His Last Wish

Five and a half years ago my dad, a World War II vet, passed away from pneumonia. Today, he's remembered for not only his war service (36 months in the Pacific Theater) but also his steadfast raising of a large family. Dad's military combat was waged on two fronts: against the Japanese Empire in the Philippines and New Guinea on the one hand, and against malaria on the other - with no fewer than five hospitalizations.

On the war front, Dad fought in the Battle of Buna, which was even bloodier than Guadalcanal, but which gets little attention from WWII historians these days. Dad - and many others - would add that he fought in the only "just War" in recent history - given that the Allies were lined up against a genuine, formidable foe, equipped with warplanes, tanks, destroyers, U-Boats, aircraft carriers - not just IEDs- intent on global domination.

Being a "good" (just) war also meant national sacrifice. It de facto  meant not only mass rationing for then citizens in the States, but also higher taxes to fund the war effort. To fix ideas, some numbers can help concerning World War II:

- A total of 16.1 million served, of whom 6.1 million volunteered - including dad (over a year before Pearl Harbor)

- 406,000 were killed (nearly the population of Cleveland) and 671,000 were wounded

- By war's end 12.1 million were still in uniform (compared with 3.1m in 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War)

- In 1950, 28 percent of all men 18 and over were WWII veterans - while today barely 1 percent of men and women are active duty military.

The preceding are all based on Census data, but it actually understates the wartime mobilization. For example, looking just at men aged 15 to 39 in 1940 (my dad was 20), between 50 and 60 percent served in World War II.

These stats disclose not only a massive mobilization in response to a real threat - but a collectively unifying dynamic not present today. The effort involved almost everyone, and even if you weren't in uniform you were likely in a factory welding tanks, planes .. .or using your ration books to purchase groceries while also paying higher taxes. NO one complained! As my dad put it, anyone calling for no taxes during the massive War effort would have been branded unpatriotic at best, and a traitor at worst.

Not one person complained about heavy new taxes during the four years of the U.S. fighting in the Pacific theater, or in Europe, though we've seen no similar pay-go with over thirteen years in Afghanistan. Nor did people bitch in the immediate post-war period when the high taxes helped to finance the Marshall Plan - to help pay for the reconstruction of Europe.

Meanwhile, in the aftermath of the War,  tax rates as high as 91 percent at the upper end helped finance the interstate highway system, new schools and other projects.

By contrast, since the launch of the two recent U.S. invasions and occupations (Afghanistan, Iraq), I have not seen one single tax raised to pay for them. This means the sacrifice is not spread out, and it also tells me that the politicians and congressional lawmakers themselves understood these were not real wars. If they did understand (and the wars were real), they’d find the means to pay for them, not impose the burden as a tax on future generations.

Indeed, one of the most cognitively dissonant recollections of the past fourteen years was right after 9/11 when on one side of their mouths the Bushies were describing it as the “worst attack since Pearl Harbor” and on the other side of their mouths, telling Americans to go out and do their patriotic duty by SHOPPING! (Bush also suggested going to Disneyworld. Seriously! The largest fantasy facility in the world and he insisted we take refuge there!)

Dad's final wish - at the time of his 89th birthday in May, 2009, and about two and a half weeks before he died, was that my book on the JFK assassination ('The JFK Assassination: The Final Analysis') be completed and published "even if it means an independent or self-publishing company".  He was that committed to it especially after reading several proof chapters before he fell ill.

From that fatal Sunday (Nov. 24, 1963)  Oswald was shot down in cold blood , he never believed Lee had a role in the vile killing of a President he loved and respected. In his own words: "He's just a workingman set up to be the patsy. Anyone who's ever hunted  ducks or geese knows you always have a decoy. That's exactly what he was!"

As for the Warren Commission Report, he never bought that pile of rotten fishwrap and said more than once it was "LBJ's protection from prosecution" (He'd followed the Bobby Baker scandal closely.)  When I told him I was dedicating the book to him he was overjoyed, "the happiest birthday" he'd had in some time.

Was dad, a decorated WW II vet, a "conspiracy kook"? Not in any way, shape or form - not even remotely. He was a fully trained, enlisted soldier,  familiar with the firing of rifles in different conditions under stress and knew Oswald's alleged feat didn't add up,  "especially with that damned Mannlicher-Carcano".  He knew, much better than the Warrenite fraudsters and groupies, what was feasible and what wasn't. Even before the files were released, and Gerald R. Ford had been shown to have altered the back wound position to the base of neck, e.g.

he knew the "single bullet' theory didn't fly. According to dad, and leaving out the expletives: "It was the biggest, $^#@*&! lie ever perpetrated on the American people!"



At my dad's funeral in July, 2009.

When dad died on July 12, 2009, I learned afterward (from my mom)  he'd left his collection of JFK books and memorabilia - including several mint condition JFK coins from 1964 -   to me.


Above: Magazine on JFK from December, 1963, below: JFK half dollar from 1964.

Each day these items as well as service medals, remind me of his contribution to his country, and also how he will be sorely missed this Memorial Day. (Which falls on his birthday this year. He'd have been 95.)

His last wish was fulfilled with the  publication of my JFK book, for which he saw proofs for the Introduction, and Chapters 1-3 (before revisions in 2013). My one regret is that he never got to see and hold the final published edition.

Scarborough: "BWWAAAAHAHA! We Can't Have Higher Taxes!"

Joe Scarborough this morning broke into a hissy fit and almost cried at the mere mention (by 'Morning Joe' guest Al Sharpton) that Obama wants a balanced approach to the deficit problem and that means more taxes. Sharpton made the accurate point that Obama had already ceded $650b as part of the fiscal cliff deal, and that had come down from $1.2 trillion.  Meanwhile, over $1.2 trillion in spending cuts had already been made last year. The time was now for MORE taxes, not less.

But why the crying, pissing and moaning from Repukes? THEY are the ones, after all (see graphs) that let deficit spending explode under Bush Jr's reign, for both tax cuts that mainly benefited the wealthy, and unpaid for wars.  While these cretins incessantly demanded TWO "wars" (actually occupations), they never insisted that anyone actually sacrifice to pay for them!

Meanwhile, I not long ago received in the mail (from my first cousin) two war ration books issued to my mom back in 1941 when she was just 19. The ration book allowed access to certain provisions, but with limits. Each book had born a number of war ration stamps which could be used to buy special goods, such as meat, bread, butter etc. The person had to sign and date each time such stamps were accessed for purchase, such that it had been legitimate, with this representation made formally (under penalty of perjury) to the Office of Price Administration. Evidently, mom had three ration stamps left at this point. (Old recovered letters from my grandmother to her son (fighting in Europe), dated 1943-44 noted some meat supplies, such as ham, beef and bacon, were running low by then.)

To me, the war ration book embodied sacrifice of the citizen in the war effort. That, along with increased taxes, disclosed it was a real war as opposed to a fraud and mockery perpetrated for the sake of lining the pockets of defense contractors and padding the payrolls of certain congressonal districts - as occurs now.

But all Americans are aware of anymore are the frauds and make-up "wars" for which no sacrifice is expected, not even higher taxes,  far less ration books with war ration stamps. And so we have a populace for which basically the events in Afghanistan (and earlier Iraq) only existed on a fantasy or unreal level if they existed at all. No surprise there!

But what Americans ought  to be processing is that those recent wars of choice exacted a cost, along with the atrocious tax cuts,  at a time taxes ought to have been raised!  The twin tables, again, show the whole sordid picture and what has really dug us into the existing deficit hole, which the "Simpson Bowlers" and Repukes now propose to extricate us from, via Catfood 2.0 perpetrated on our seniors. (See e.g. http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/48217/youve-heard-of-the-birthers-now-meet-the-simpson-bowlers )

Now, logically, since the Repukes dug us into this debt hole by refusal to approve adequate revenue, for both the "wars" and tax cuts (as well as their insane 2003 prescription drug bill - more a giveaway to  Big PhRma), then it is logical that increased revenue must be the way to dig us out of the debt mess.  As a New York Times op-ed put it today, the first major tax hits....errr....hikes.... must come from the hides of those who benefited most from the Bush tax cuts during the "war" years:

"Those taxpayers are the same ones who benefited most from Bush-era tax breaks and who continue to pay low taxes. Even with recent increases, the new top rate of 39.6 percent is historically low; investment income is still taxed at special low rates; and the heirs of multimillion-dollar estates face lower taxes than at almost any time in modern memory."


Incredibly,  despite these facts, the Repukes are resisting any cuts to defense, this despite the fact that they haven't - up to now - paid for any of their earlier defense spending shenanigans. They let TWO "wars" go unfunded, during supposed "war time" - a big hoot if there ever was one- plus they've not paid for the two sets of Bush tax cuts that already produced $3.2 trillion in deficits even before Obama got into office.

These miscreants demand this perfidy despite the fact it would impose "brutalizing cuts in non-defense discretionary areas like education, environment..already set to see their lowest share of the budget since 1950" according to the NY Times op-ed.   The education hits may well mean thousands of college students can't obtain affordable loans. The cuts to the EPA will mean our water here in Colorado, for example, will not be checked for contamination from the recent discovery of nuclear-polluted tailings, or from fracked effluent with xylene, benzene etc. backed up into our aquifers. Hello, more cancers!

The TIMES makes the additional sound point that:

"Raising taxes at the top is neither punitive nor gratuitous. It is a needed step, both to achieve near-term budget goals and to lay the foundation for a healthy budget in the future. As the economy strengthens and the population ages, more taxes will be needed from further down the income scale, both to meet foreseeable commitments, especially health care, as well as unforeseeable developments, from wars to technological challenges"


Will the Repukes pay attention? I doubt it, despite the fact that recent polls all disclose the public is on the side of Obama's solutions not the Tea-Party tainted Repuke House. For example, A USA Today/Pew Research poll released Thursday shows Obama with a strong lead over Republicans in Congress on gun policies (45-39 percent), the budget deficit (45-38 percent), immigration (50-33 percent) and even climate change (47-26 percent). When this news came out it prompted Scarborough to cry out two days ago: "We're gettin' our butts beat by Obama!"  Yeah, Joe! Deal with it!


Meanwhile, a Bloomberg poll from Wednesday had similar findings, with Obama’s approval ratings reaching a 3-year high at 55 percent, while just 35 percent have a favorable view of Republicans. From Bloomberg:


"Americans by 49 percent to 44 percent believe Obama’s proposals for government spending  on infrastructure, education and alternative energy are more likely to create jobs than Republican calls to cut spending and taxes to build business confidence and spur employment."

Now, this ought not come as a shock for anyone with more than air between the ears! I mean, as one wit aptly put it a year ago, referring to the European austerity measures: "Look, it's silly to think you can run a race faster if you cut off one of your feet!"

Adding to Republican troubles: 43 percent of Americans blame Republicans for what’s wrong in Washington, compared with 34 percent who blame Obama.

If any Americans read the recent TIME story concerning the F-35 waste ( Feb. 25, 'The Most Expensive Weapon Ever Built’ ,p. 26), they'd also be asking why have that white elephant when cutting it would mean so much more benefit for the nation, in all domestic spheres. The Repuke answer is "We need to be strong on defense!" but that's a red herring. What they really want is military jobs for their own districts- they care nothing about real national sacrifice, not like during a REAL war (WWII) which saw my mom using ration books and her family paying higher taxes! You can't have a real war and not have a broad spectrum of citizen-public sacrifice, particularly to PAY for said war. Otherwise, you have a shameless farce and one costing lives and wasting treasure unnecessarily!


Bottom line: the shtick of Repukes and their pro-Southern extremist party has been well known since the 1960s: Bleed the government coffers dry using bloated military spending and tax cuts, then demand the next Dem president cut all domestic spending on account of the deficits the war mongers-tax cutters generated.

But I believe too many people are much wiser now, especially as most of us have the first hand evidence - whether from ration books of WWII, or from deficit charts today - to isolate the frauds from the real McCoys. And the Repukes are frauds!