World War II | Grumpa Joe's Place

Enchanting Racism

Posted on 12/02/2011 by Grumpa Joe

Cover of "The Rodgers & Hammerstein Colle...

Cover via Amazon

A week ago, I was cleaning my office and found a bare DVD disk of the movie ‘South Pacific.’ The backside was all scratched up. Should I find a jacket for it, or toss it? In order to make a good decision, I watched the movie.

WOW! What a fantastic story. I had forgotten the plot, but recalled of it from a reading of James Michener‘s book ‘Tales of the South Pacific.’ I love James Michener books. The first one I read was ‘Poland.’ A Polish friend loaned it to me. My wife Barbara was Polish and I wanted to learn all about her heritage. As are most of Michener’s books, this one was over a thousand pages. I was riveted to the narrative for three days, finishing five hundred pages before getting tired. I set the book down on the end table to keep it handy. The book lie there for a solid year before I picked it up again on a summer weekend that was too hot and humid to go outside. I read the remaining five hundred pages.

I fell in love with Michener’s style and the historical perspective he gave to his writing. The jacket cover on Poland mentioned him as a Pulitzer Prize winning author. I searched for the book that got him the prize, it was ‘Tales of the South Pacific.’ This story was one of his earliest. Contrary to later works, his early books were only three hundred pages. When I finished ‘Tales of the South Pacific,’ I had a clear understanding of the conditions our service people lived through in the Pacific during WWII.

Not all sailors were involved on carriers and cruisers fighting the Japanese. A large number were stationed on remote islands that were thousands of miles from home. They served as maintenance, supply, and hospital stations for those who engaged in battle. Needless to say, when there was no ship to service, these men and women let their own creativity fend the boredom of remote island living. Michener’s narrative of their exploits are both hilarious, and sad, but always factual and entertaining.

The movie, ‘South Pacific,’ is Michener’s story. Rogers and Hammerstein adapted the characters and derived the plot directly from ‘Tales of the South Pacific.’ I was amazed at how closely they followed Michener’s work. He included a racial theme in the story, and it was probably one of the first times we got a dose of reality on the racism that existed in our country during the nineteen fifties, and how the distance from home allowed some service people to break barriers.

Roger’s and Hammerstein wrote it as a musical play, and staged it on Broadway where it stayed for many years, finally making it into the movie. It became one of the best-loved films of all time. If you watch this movie, and don’t leave it humming, or singing Some Enchanted Evening, you are not alive.

I found a jacket for the DVD and placed in the library with all of my classics.

Phillyist Reviews … South Pacific (phillyist.com)
‘The Hammersteins’ is long overdue (pbpulse.com)

Filed under: Biography, Book Review, family, Memories, Movie Review, Society, Theater, Warm and Fuzzy | Tagged: Broadway, James Michener, Musicals, New Caledonia, Pacific, Pacific Ocean, Poland, Pulitzer Prize, racism, Rodgers and Hammerstein, South Pacific, US Navy, World War II | 7 Comments »

Make Him Stand in the Corner

Posted on 11/11/2010 by Grumpa Joe

I salute you, the Veterans of the US armed services. Regardless of your age, branch of service or duty, I thank you for keeping us protected and for marching into duty at the command of our country.

A dear friend of mine sent these posters and I want to share them with you. They bring back many memories of my boyhood, when the United States was considered a great country, and our president did not fly around the world apologizing for our actions. Quite the opposite, it was the rest of the world that was thanking us and our service people for their sacrifice.

When ever we see Obama bowing and apologizing, we the people should make him stand in the corner and read the history of the American Revolution, Spanish-American war, WW I, WWII, the Korean police action, the Viet Nam war, the war to liberate Kuwait, the war to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan to put down the Taliban. When he is done with the history lesson, I would make him watch videos of the Muslim hijacked airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon.

He needs to understand that the millions of US soldiers that died were not dying for gain in those countries, but rather for the liberation of Peoples from tyranny. He needs to understand that the U.S.A. dropped the bomb on Japan, not to be mean, but to end a war that would have gone on for several more years at the expense of millions of more lives.

What Obama needs to apologize for, is duping the citizenry of this great country into believing his hope and change was something other than socialism.

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A Tribute to American Soldiers (socyberty.com)
To all who currently serve and or have served our country, this is for you. (vividlyvintage.com)

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: apology, Korean War, Obama, United States, United States armed forces, United States Army, Veteran's Day, Vietnam War, War in Afghanistan (2001–present), World Trade Center, World War II | 2 Comments »

Red, White, and Blue Stars and Stripes Stir my Soul

Posted on 02/07/2010 by Grumpa Joe

Today, I changed flags on my flagpole. It is always a joy to unfurl a new flag and raise it for the first time. There is something special about a vibrant and fresh red, white, and blue American flag.

My love affair with the American flag began with World War II. Watching movies of our troops in action behind the flag instilled a degree of patriotism not seen in today’s generation. When I observe my grandkids and realize the only input they have about the involvement of their country in WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Kuwait, Iraq, and wars that don’t come to mind, must come from a history book. I have not read their history books, but I would be willing to bet that the new books cover these wars a lot differently from what I know having lived through them.

With the government dropping God, and all references to Him from everything scholastic, I would bet the book editors are leaning the books toward a socialist system in the USA. After all, we defeated communism so there is no reason to pepper a young child’s mind about useless information like that. The problem is that communism is creeping back into our society through the progressive-liberal-socialist movement. I am shocked at how many of our good citizens truly believe that a big government can take care of all their needs. A big government without God that controls every aspect of your life is communism.

What do you think?

Filed under: Conservative, family, Government, liberals, religion, Society | Tagged: Communism, History, Iraq, Korea, Kuwait, Progressive, socialist, Viet Nam, war, World War II | 4 Comments »

A Patriot’s Point of View

Posted on 29/03/2010 by Grumpa Joe

I love the internet! My friends send me stuff all day long. It saves me endless hours of surfing on my own. I just open my e-mail and there it is. Most of the time we trade jokes, cartoons, and letters of rage. Today, I received a copy of a letter that has been circulating for a few months. The letter to President Obama is written by a veteran of World War Two . He is ninety-five years old, and is he upset. Harold is upset about the change that is going on.The sender verified it on Snopes, but having been duped into believing too many erroneous articles, I checked it out on Snopes myself. The letter is correctly attributed to Harold Estes.Please read this patriot’s letter and comment on his point of view.

Dear President Obama, My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don’t believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos’n Mate. Now I live in a “rest home” located on the western end of Pearl Harbor , allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can’t figure out what country you are the president of.

You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:

” We’re no longer a Christian nation”

” America is arrogant” – (Your wife even

announced to the world,” America is mean-

spirited. ” Please tell her to try preaching

that nonsense to 23 generations of our

war dead buried all over the globe who

died for no other reason than to free a

whole lot of strangers from tyranny and

hopelessness.)

I’d say shame on the both of you, but I don’t think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

After 9/11 you said,” America hasn’t lived up to her ideals.”

Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn’t mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.

I don’t think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.

Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.

Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don’t, I’ll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue . You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts , who was putting up a fight? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you’re the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you’re not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you’re thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.

You’re not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That’s not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.

And I sure as hell don’t want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle…

Sincerely,

Harold B. Estes

Snopes confirms as true:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/haroldestes.asp

Filed under: Conservative, Election, family, Government, liberals, politics | Tagged: America is Arrogant, America is Mean Spirited, Apology Tour, Christian Nation, Civil War, Discrimination, Enemy, Harold Estes, Independence, Muslim Fanatics, slavery, Veteran, World War II | 2 Comments »

Wait Until Those Born Before 1945 Are Dead

Posted on 21/08/2009 by Grumpa Joe

I received a piece of memorabilia today that is also a piece of history. It came in one of those e-mails that is forwarded a hundred times with a request to keep it going.

The pictures below are all posters that were displayed during WWII. I grew up with these images and the message was very clear. My parents, who were legal immigrants lived by the principles espoused by these posters. If they are hard to see or read in the size they are in, try double clicking on them with the left button. You’ll be surprised by how clear they become.

In this day, when the country is debating the virtues of a new Health Care Reform bill, it seemed to me that receiving these posters was a reminder of our heritage. It certainly reminds me of the price we paid for our liberty. Currently, we are faced with an administration whose plan for the country runs eerily parallel to the ones we fought during WWII.

Those of you who were born after 1945 will not understand what I am talking about. The Democratic Socialist Republic of Germany proposed health care reforms similar to the ones being pushed upon us today. The Marxists who took over Eastern European countries, confiscated personal properties and socialized everyone, and everything. The experiment paralyzed Eastern Europe for generations.

I hear POTUS now using religion as a new strategy to sell the pig in a poke program. He is laying a guilt trip on the religious to empathize the bill into reality. This comes from a man who believes in killing unborn babies, He is also the one who came up with the brainstorm to save money by making our military people pay for their own health care. Thank God he changed his mind on that one.

The posters below represent the way ideas and issues were communicated in the early 1940’s. For all the youngsters out there, that was before the advent of TV, personal computers, Internet, Facebook, and Twitter.

I recommend the following strategy to the liberal left, and Barack Obama. If you want to make the USA into a Fascist country, wait until everyone who was born before 1945 is dead. Look at all of these posters and read some world history to learn how stupid life was under Nazi-ism, Marxism, and Fascism. Then decide if you want to meet the same fate as the leaders of those isms met.

Thank you Ervin Stoss for circulating this fabulous collection.