A Little Known...Amazing Story

Earlier this month the world celebrated the the one-hundred year anniversary of World War One ending. Even though I wasn't born until the 1960s, I feel a connection to earlier generations. My father was born six years after that war ended. Many of my adult role models lived through the Great Depression and several wars.

I spent the weekend before Veterans Day this year on the internet looking at sites, checking out stories. One story popped up on Twitter that I had never heard of before. It involved the WWI flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker.

But something embedded inside the story caught my attention and made me think about more than just the war, more than just the story of a pilot witnessing the end of a horrible time in humanity's history.

What struck me most about the story is the way the soldiers acted once the war had officially ended. One moment they were killing each other, and because of a decision made by others, they emerged from their trenches they began hugging and dancing and celebrating. I find it amazing that humans have the capacity to both love each other and kill each other. It's all a matter of choice.

The story reminded me of not just the evil in us, but also the good and that we can be good. Hopefully, given the choice, we'll choose good.

Veterans Day, 2018...It's All About Time

I've been alive for a few big anniversaries. I remember watching TV on July 4th, 1976, and, of course, the whole world watched as the calendar changed from 1999 to the year 2000. Today we celebrated the one-hundred year anniversary of the first great war ending.

I think this one means more to me than the other two.

One could argue which has more meaning, but to me, the Bicentennial was neat, but I was a ten-year old kid. I didn't understand the significance of the United States in the history of the world. And the Year 2000 event was amazing, but it's just a number. If you're a non-Christian, I don't know why you'd celebrate it, and if you are a Christian, many experts agree that it wasn't exactly two-thousand years since Christ was born.

But today means more, because it involves family, and by extension, all of us.

I love watches and I've been fortunate enough to have inherited several from both my father and father-in-law. Since my dad passed away two and a half years before the Bicentennial, his watches are old. My father-in-law had both old and new. At precisely 11am this morning, I pulled out my father-in-law's newest (and most favorite...) watch and filmed it hit 11am exactly. I also took pictures of the two older Bulovas owned by each of them and photographed them, too.

Both men, Dad and Blaine, served their country, my father in WWII, and father-in-law in the Korean War. Both sacrificed. Both survived. I never heard stories about either of their experiences--one because he passed away decades ago, and the other because he didn't like to talk about it. He, too, has left us.

A hundred years ago today a chapter of humanity's darkest history closed, only to be re-opened again and again since. We celebrate the day, express our thanks, then do it all over again a few years later. In the end, it's about time. It's about how we use that time, how we think and treat others. I have watches that are reminders of two great men who gave their time so me and my family could live the life we live now. Thank you Harry and Blaine, and thank you everyone and their families that continue to give of their time for us.

Erik Larson's "Dead Wake"...A Book Review

There's so much history I don't know. I can understand why people study history, be it to teach, or just to have that information locked into your mind. Many people study ancient history, the great societies of Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, while others focus on the Dark Ages of Europe.

I'm pretty sure I'd find amazing stories in every time period. Personally, I love hearing about the mid-twentieth century. It's when my parents came of age. My father was a veteran of WWII and I never got a chance to talk to him about what it was like to live during that era.

I haven't focused a lot on WWI, even though that was when my grandparents came of age. But today I finished listening to Erik Larson's Dead Wake, an in depth telling of Germany's sinking of the Lusitania.

Fascinating.

I've read two of Larson's books, The Devil in the White City, and In the Garden of Beasts. I loved The Devil in the White City so much, I knew I'd read anything Mr. Larson wrote. So far, he hasn't disappointed, including Dead Wake.

I know very little of the Lusitania's sinking (sorry, spoiler alert...). Much more has been made of the HMS Titanic disaster, but after learning of how the Lusitania sank, to me it's a sadder tale, because it wasn't an act of nature mixed with human errors. Lusitania's end was an act of war. Titanic's demise most likely changed how ships were built and how ocean voyages were navigated. What happened to the Lusitania helped change the world.

If you've not had the opportunity to read a book by Erik Larson, you're in for an amazing literary experience. Larson has the wonderful ability to bring these people to life, almost as if you could speak to them, as if you know them, which makes leaning of the way they died and survived that much more impactful.

In the end, the event was another piece of history. It was a maritime event, a war event, a human event. Larson points out all the things that had to have happened--and happened just right--for the disaster to have unfolded the way it did. It got me thinking, if this ship hadn't been attacked, would America joined WWI? And if not, how would the world be today? That's another fascinating aspect of history, the "what ifs." 

I should really study more of history, and read more of Mr. Larson's books.