One aspect of WWII that is often overlooked, is how, before one Allied soldier put a toe on the European continent, men would squeeze themselves into heavy insulated flying suits, clamber into the tight spaces of two- and four-engine bombers, loaded with tons of high explosive, and fly unescorted over enemy-held territory, to drop that ordinance on factories, bridge, railroad yards, ball bearing plants, oil refineries, etc. They would travel at altitudes above 28,000 feet, in cold so bitter, taking off a glove would mean almost instant frostbite. They would do this, knowing full well that the Germans knew they were coming, and would fly through walls of flak bursts and waves of German fighters, being killed wholesale or wounded grievously, to accomplish the mission. Then would return home in those same planes, sometimes badly shot up... then would do it again. And again. And again.
The most interesting part is, most of those men didn't sign up for this. They were drafted, conscripted into a fight that most of them were not gung-ho to sign up for, Pearl Harbor be damned. That had families and homes and jobs, and they were pulled from their comfortable lives, to be shot through the air and into the teeth of cannon fire, to try and cripple the enemy's war machine. Their accomplishments do not have the shine of Patton's drive across France; the Eighth Air Force was not high on anyone's publicity charts, because the losses were so fearsome. Flying high altitude bombing raids over France, Germany, and Italy, and later, Japan, during the war was not glamorous, and these men paid dearly. If not physically, then mentally. They did their jobs. They paid the price. And we were able to remain a free country.
This preamble is by way of saying that, right now, we face a war, and a foe, as menacing and destructive as they faced, but the worst part is they're here, in our country. They have taken over our government, they have begun instituting policies reminiscent of mid-1930s Germany, and the rhetoric they use is straight out of any White Christian Fascist tract you care to name. After sixty years, the Republican Party has what it wants: domination of Federal government and the means to wreck it utterly. The glee that they have tucked into it with is unrepentant and savage.
I would like to believe that there will be ways to derail this freight train of malevolence, but I can't say for certain. The ground for this rampage was well paved beforehand, mainly through the generation of apathy on the hearts of tens of millions of Americans, who couldn't rise from their recliners to vote for honest and decent government and condemned their vulnerable neighbors to pain and suffering at the hands of barbaric louts.
The only way, however, I see for us to send this nightmare train off the tracks is for everyone of good conscience to get involved and get organized. Barring that, I don't know how we mass the force capable of repelling these invaders in the sanctum of our democracy. We're here, now, and this isn't going to change of its own accord. We cannot wait for aid from abroad, we cannot expect help from within, we can only rely on ourselves.
We're going to have slip into our flying suits, now. We're going have to fly into the face of raging winds, bitter cold, and determined opposition, in order to turn back the tide. It is going to take every one of us. And right now, among you, are people, like those men in WWII, not keen to fight the war, but called upon to do it anyway, knowing the chance of survival is small. There's nothing for it. We either stand as one or fall as many. The engines are turning. What will it be?
