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[Kristin Meredith]

I think Bent has posted this before, but I will do so again because it is interesting:

Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes.  The writer just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes.. He went into a small gift shop to kill time. In the gift shop, he purchased a small book entitled, "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz.
 
Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C.  He was paged and told there was a phone call for him.  When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone.  He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet.
 
Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet.  He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941.  There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat--you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war.  On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters every where you looked.

As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?"  Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?"
Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?" Nimitz explained:

Mistake number one : the Japanese attacked on Sunday morning.  Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave.  If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two : when the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships.  If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired.  As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised.  One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America.  And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three : every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply.  That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make or God was taking care of America.
 
Any way you look at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism. President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job.  We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat.
There is a reason that our national motto is,   IN GOD WE TRUST.
 
 

[dk117]

So, if you ever want to introduce her to a little U.S. History, please feel free to send her along to me for a few weeks.  We will visit Jamestown and Williamsburg and Yorktown and go to a bunch of Civil War Battlefields and conclude with tours of Phill and DC!!!! And I will be in hog heaven to pass on info to a bright young thing who is our future!

I want you to know this isn't falling on deaf ears.   I'm trying.   My daughters first flight was to Washington DC (we're from Washington State).   I was on a work trip, the wife was stir crazy, so we flew them out for a long weekend. My daughter was 6 months old and doesn't remember it.     But we do have pictures at the major sights and air and space museum with our baby daughter.    Luckily for me I have a high school friend who is an assistant chief of staff for a congressman and got us the full behind the ropes tour.  I think Bent referenced a tour like it in your most recent visit.   

DK

PS this thread has got me thinking, I'm a little apathetic yes.  My wife isn't, we are however both trying to educate our children.    Thanks for the nice chat pelletfans. 

[pmillen]

My father's favorite line was from 2 Henry VI:  "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."  (I was a lawyer, so that was our joke).

I'm not writing this to demean your father.  His was a joke, not a belief.  But it's often quoted as an exaggerated step for correcting perceived flaws in the judicial system.

“Let’s kill all the lawyers.”
         Dick, “The Butcher”

People who quote this line from Shakespeare’s Henry VI should know that Dick was not intended to be a highly regarded character.  Reflect on his nickname.  He was an ignorant killer.  Shakespeare crafted his character so that a prudent person would know to do the opposite of whatever "The Butcher" recommends.

[Bar-B-Lew]

I'm gonna say this and probably get bashed for it.

I believe our country has led many of revolutionary or evolutionary advancements in science, manufacturing, distribution, technology, transportation, etc.  Unfortunately, for better or worse, we have outsourced a bunch of that to countries outside of our borders to get a lower cost so that more people in our country could afford to have access to certain things and so companies could make more money for which some people who invested in those companies through stock purchases, mutual funds, 401k, etc. could earn money on their savings for retirement.  While that was happening, our government, at times over the years, has made decisions to reduce investments in funding education while other countries have significantly increased theirs.  Those other countries also took what we developed and expanded and improved upon our ideas, concepts, designs, etc. faster than we did because of those reductions in funding education.  Thus, some other countries have surpassed us in certain areas, equaled us in certain areas, nearly caught up to us in certain areas, or reduced their need for us in certain areas.

I support the curriculum for improving the education of our future generations so that it far exceeds that of other countries so we once again become the country that leads the advancement of science, manufacturing, distribution, technology, transportation, etc.  I am fine with giving up the history of things that have happened generations ago from the current students in favor of advancing their educations exceedingly beyond those of others outside of the USA.  I would also prefer we give preferential treatment to our citizens to our colleges and universities over those outside of our country which would be against the current norm for the top 100+ schools in our country.  I prefer we focus on generating the best for our country in the future even if that means sacrificing teaching what may have happened in the past.

I am not saying I don't respect and honor those who have served and died for our freedoms.  I am saying let's honor what they sacrificed by focusing on becoming the best educated country in the world again.

I am also not saying "Let's Make America Great Again".  I'm not for war.  I'm not for locking down the borders.  I'm also not for getting stepped on by other countries or people coming into our country getting free rides.  I'm also not for people in our country getting free rides.  I've will say this until I die.  We need to invest in education and infrastructure.  Infrastructure investment will keep people employed albeit they may need to be trained in new or different skills.

I have not agreed on what a President has wanted for their agenda in my lifetime that I could comprehend what was happening around us.  I have agreed with certain things they have pushed on their agenda regardless of them being a Republican or Democrat. We have become too extreme and need to get closer to the center.  If we don't, other countries will continue to thank us for infighting and will continue to advance with less reliance on us.  Sometimes that may not be a bad thing as I don't feel we can protect every country by sacrificing the invest those funds in advancing our country.

So, I apologize for my soap box rant.  I just feel we need to focus on educating our future on things to advance this country.

[Bentley]

The cost of the war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq....$4,400,000,000.000.00.  How far will that get you?  That is $14,666,666.00 per US Citizen.

And I blame the last 5 Presidents and the Majority of US Congress people for this figure equally!

We ALL HAVE to start telling the people that represents us this is not acceptable.

We need to invest in education and infrastructure.  Infrastructure investment will keep people employed albeit they may need to be trained in new or different skills.

[Bar-B-Lew]

Again, I don't want to come across as a fan or critic of the current establishment, but there may be something to be said to protecting our borders from invasion than having to fight wars abroad in the guise of protecting our borders.  Let's figure out how to use technology and better communication with our international espionage partners.

How did our country go from being the place many citizens of foreign countries wanted to escape their homeland in search of freedoms and a better lifestyle for 200+ years (and where we as a country were founded on that principle) to a place where people wanted to pretend they wanted to come here only to cause us harm?  I don't think any country in the world thinks they can overtake our land and people.  I also don't think most countries in the world think things would be better if they shot off nuclear weapons and destroyed portions of other countries.

I'm not going to get into the right or wrong of either of these scenarios, but it seems to me the world issues centered around war come down to a few things - some Arabic countries don't want Israel to exist due to religious differences, Russia wants to control Eastern Europe and maybe Asia, and Japan/China/North Korea want to control Asia.  You don't hear about anyone wanting to takeover Africa, Antartica, Greenland, Eastern Europe, North or South America, Australia/New Zealand and other places I may have not mentioned.  The rest of what seems to cause war is zealots on those extremes not wanting us involved.

It's interesting that in a recent training class I had at work about workplace harassment they mentioned the Platinum Rule in place of the Golden Rule.  I never heard of it before.  The Golden Rule...paraphrasing and you may have your own interpretation...treat others how you want to be treated.  The Platinum Rule...treat other how they want to be treated.   It's an interesting concept when you step back and think that most of us don't know the standards, principles, history, beliefs, etc. of other countries.  On the flip side, the same could be said for those wanting to reside in our country.  I'm not saying give up your heritage, but let's respect each others heritage.  The heritage of our relatives has lost at least a portion of its meaning as we have blended as people into this country.

[Bentley]

And that is what made this Country so Great.  You weren't German, or Russian, or Japanese...you weren't Mexican, or Brazilian or Congolese...you were American's!

The heritage of our relatives has lost at least a portion of its meaning as we have blended as people into this country.

[Bar-B-Lew]

And that is what made this Country so Great.  You weren't German, or Russian, or Japanese...you weren't Mexican, or Brazilian or Congolese...you were American's!

The heritage of our relatives has lost at least a portion of its meaning as we have blended as people into this country.

I wholeheartedly agree living in a part of the country that exemplifies that very thing from block to block in a lot of areas or certainly for borough or township or whatever you want to classify the geography of it as.

I worked in Mexico for 18 months and did my best to speak the language, eat their food, learn some of their history and culture, etc.  And I truely feel that it helped me be more successful in my professional career than if I would not have done that.  It also opened me up to other things about their culture that I really enjoyed....art, food, beer, music, etc.

I had a class in college named "The History of the Lehigh Valley".  At that time, I had lived in that area for the first almost 20 years of my life.  I learned more in that class about the 25+ mile radius where I lived than I had in my entire lifetime leading into that.  In hindsight as I type this, maybe our local high schools should focus more on local history and portions of American history focused on heritage and assimilation.