Maybe you have noticed and you maybe you haven’t, but there is an 'odd feeling' to this country lately, something very strange. Some years ago I was doing research on local history at the library. I was reviewing old microfilmed newspaper articles written just prior to the American Civil War. I was astonished to find the amount of articles and editorials that stated to the effect, “While we all feel an agitated state of affairs over slavery, it would be preposterous to suppose Cessation and possible war might be the result.” I found this intriguing. On the heels of an all out Civil War - almost up to the last minute, there were those who felt it nearly impossible. It is also interesting that few - if any, saw the lead-up to the First World War. After all, who would have thought that something like Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination would plunge an entire world into war? Then again, the Machine Age ushered in an entire new arsenal for the world to try out. It was bound to happen.
I occasionally speak with an elderly gentleman named Chuck from Rochelle Illinois. He served in the Marine Corps in WWII in the Pacific Theater, namely at Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Tinian. He wife informed me that for many years he would never talk about the war. Three years ago he broke a long held silence. One of his grandsons began asking him questions about the war, and he finally opened up. I asked him why he had changed his mind and he said, “I don’t want to take it with me.” We often talk about the war and many of his other experiences.
It reminds me of a time when I used to sit down with my maternal grandfather as he talked about his life. I would ask him one question after another, prodding my way along trying to imagine in my own mind what it must have been like to have lived in 'the olden days'. I was a puzzle to him, he must have thought, ‘who is this kid that wants to talk about history rather than baseball?’ As far as I know, I was the only grandchild to have an interest in the past.
My grandfather was 12 years old when the Spanish Flu Epidemic hit in 1918. He related how they stacked the bodies like cord wood onto wagons and hauled them out of Camp Grant down Kishwaukee Street. I still remember how he would tear up when he talked about it. Almost appologetically he would pause and wipe the tears from his face. Everone at the time knew someone that died in that horrendous epidemic.
Chuck always ends our conversations with, “I’m sorry to bring up the past”, as he wipes a tear from his eye. I do not believe he realizes that it is usually me that brings it up. I feel somewhat guilty about bringing up things that are still painfull in the eyes of those who have lived it. My consolation comes from Chuck in the same mannor that it came from my grandfather. The next time we see each other there is always that sparkle in our eyes, and that smile that seems to say that maybe we have succeded in defeating the Generation Gap. To the young or old, such a victory is rare.
That generation endured the Great Depression. That generation knew all too well what hardship was about, and yet everytime I speak with one of them I get the feeling that they miss that era. I often wonder whether it is their youth that they miss, or if it is the fact that they lament the despicable shape our society is in today. Are they aware that they were the Greatest Generation? I asked Chuck one night if he thought that the current generation could endure such hardship. He is a very modest man and humble by any one's standards. I expected him to say something like,'yes if they had to'. But he did not. Instead, he said that the current generation could not cope because, " they are too soft in the pants." He did not have to say anymore, I knew unquestionalby that he was right. Both Chuck and his wife are examples of living history. I respect him and I admire him, he has no reason to apologize to me for anything. I consider it an honor to have ever met him or his wife. His wife is an outstanding person, a real jewel who remembers the war years and the sacrifices that were made on the home front.
One day as I was driving down to Rochelle I was absorbed in deep thought about what questions I wanted to ask Chuck the next time I see him. There was one question that kept coming to the forefront. That night he and his wife pulled into the parking lot next to my car. Here was my chance. After some small talk we talked about the history of Rochelle, and then he told me a few stories about growing up in a small town in the 1930’s. Before we parted our ways for the evening - I had to ask,” What was it like in the years and days leading up to the war? Did anyone see it coming?”
“Of course we did, he said, there was no getting around it. My teacher told us in History Class that he had served in WWI. He knew what war was about. He had lived before it, survived during it, and he dealt with the aftermath. He told us that by the time we graduated from High School we would be in another war, only bigger. We believed him.”
I asked him again, “So Chuck, you knew it was coming?”
Chuck was agitated that I had asked the same question again. It was as if I should have already deduced whatever it was I was after. I only wanted to point more toward his personal experience and opinion.
But he answered, “Yes, of course, you could feel it in the air. The attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor – that was a surprise, but we knew that sooner or later something was going to happen to pull us in.”
As I drove home that night I kept running those words through my mind, ‘you could feel it in the air.’
Chuck gave me what I was after – he always does. I could not help but notice that he kept using the word, ‘we’ instead of, ‘I’. This tells me that the feeling leading up to the war was something that was ‘collective’ rather than just a personal observation. In other words, the smell of war was in the air, not merely in the room.
I suspect at least some of the men who wrote the newspaper articles and editorials just prior to the American Civil War were living in a cocoon of wishful thinking or sheer denial. I believe that if you could go back in time you would indeed find that there were many who collectively felt there was ‘something in the air'.
Yes, you can feel something in the air in 2010. In fact, I have been feeling it in the air for the last several years. There is an Arsenal of contention, hatred, religious, ethnic, and racial intolerance, political polarization, economic insecurity, and a whole plethora of other nasty things in History’s’ weapons cache. And I don’t believe they are going to be any less explosive in historical nature than the American Civil War, World War One, or World War Two. In fact, we are in for something bigger, much bigger - it is bound to happen.
Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos.
Will Durant, Think about that for a moment.
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