I meant to post this picture on Veterans’ Day, but forgot. Better late than never! t’s a photo of the door to the USO club, or a room with a similar military theme, in the Bangor, Maine Airport.
Each of the insignia represents a different military unit, and each obviously is the subject of significant unit pride. They’re all cool, but my favorite is the “Bully Beef Express” emblem found in the upper left quadrant of the doorway. The “Bully Beef Express” refers to the Sixth Airlift Squadron, a unit that was formed in 1933 and that got its nickname flying boiled beef to American troops in the Pacific during World War II. The distinctive patch with the snorting bull was developed shortly after the Squadron received its nickname.
The added interest comes from the game’s location. 
In 1984 President Reagan used the occasion of the 40th anniversary of D-Day to give one of the greatest speeches he ever delivered. He stood on the soil of Normandy, faced a group of Army Rangers — the “Boys of Pointe du Hoc” — who had acted with unbelievable courage in fulfilling their role in the battle plan on June 6, 1944, and talked about the deeply felt beliefs that motivated those men, and the brave citizens of every participating nation, to endure the sacrifices necessary to rescue the people of Europe from tyranny. The speech was deeply moving to anyone who felt pride in those sacrifices and profound appreciation for the Boys of Pointe du Hoc and their fellow Allied soldiers.
I doubt Iron Sky will ever make it to our local multiplex cinema, but the movie’s popularity shows, once again, that people are endlessly intrigued by Nazis. Books, movies, and TV shows involving Nazis always seem to find an audience.
Nazi Germany was one of the most brutal, bloody, awful regimes in the history of the world. Why is it such a popular subject for fiction — to the point where it can even be the subject of humor? Why does Nazi Germany seem to be a far more popular setting for fiction than, say, Imperial Japan?
The King’s Speech is a simple story about a man who is struggling to overcome what he considers to be a humiliating affliction — a ferocious, disabling stutter — and the connection he forms with a speech instructor who helps him to overcome it. That story is told powerfully, and well.
The last episode aired on Sunday, and it was powerful stuff indeed. In fact, the tremendous power of the episode was especially surprising, because after weeks of watching people getting shot and blown to bits, dealing with soul-searing horror, and struggling — not always successfully — to maintain their essential humanity, we got to see them come home to a peaceful, bucolic America that had not really changed since they had left. The prior weeks of bloody carnage and terror made the poor, ravaged veterans’ return all the more poignant, as they struggled to find jobs, get grounded, and deal with loved ones who could not possibly understand what they had lived through. How unreal and bizarre America must have seemed! The scene where Private Sledge sat under a beautiful spreading tree on the lawn of his sprawling family home in Mobile, Alabama, politely yet firmly explaining to his mother that he had no plans and no interest in looking for work for a while, was especially memorable in that regard.
I mention Pearl Harbor not merely because today is the 68th anniversary of the bombing, but because I think our national response to the attack is worth remembering. Under President Roosevelt’s leadership, America — which was horribly unprepared for war — geared up for an enormous struggle, fought a two-front war that featured bloody battles on virtually every continent, and eventually forced its enemies to accept unconditional surrender. America did not ask for war, but when war was thrust upon it, it accepted that burden, made the necessary sacrifices, fought the war, and won.
