The origin of this particular column arises out of the confluence of events. The first was reading the obituary of Donald McPherson, a World War II naval aviator and fighter who died at the age of 103. The other was a news story commemorating the 80th anniversary of the official end of World War II with the signing of the surrender treaty aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945.
Mr. McPherson is one of the last of that extraordinary generation of men who left their homes and loved ones and devoted years of their lives to defeating the manifest evil of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
It is time to remind ourselves how much all of us owe to (depending on one’s age) our fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and uncles, great uncles, etc. for their sacrifice and courage in putting their lives on the line to defend our freedom. Many of them were away from home and loved ones for several years (I know personally of men who were overseas for over 3 years before they could come home to wives and children who were born to their pregnant wives after their departure).
Many of these World War II veterans carried with them physical scars and terrible memories of the things they experienced and the friends they saw killed in action.
What a generation of men. No wonder they were called the “greatest generation.” Raised during the Great Depression, often in economic deprivation, they fought and won a world war and then came home and built the greatest economy the world had ever seen over the next 40 years.
Click Here to Read More (Originally Published at The Christian Post)
