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Back to school time is here! It's called Social Studies now, but history can still be fun. See if you don't agree.
Jim Walker brings our attention to a quote from a previously linked story:
I believe we need to reclaim the kind of citizenship. It's a citizenship seared into me 30 years ago when I served with a band of brothers in Vietnam. We were all living together, working together, taking care of each other, kids from Arkansas, Iowa, California, Massachusetts, and a young African American gunner by the name of David Alston, from South Carolina. Color, religion, background, all of it just melted away into an understanding that we were 'Americans.' It shouldn't have to take a war to remind us understand that we're all in this together.
"...all in this together..." 'two America's' - whatever. 'Band of Brothers' though - that's catchy. But hey, once seared you just don't forget.
Next: Creative Writing 101: I think this from another entry into the Fan Fiction series. It's getting hard to tell:
As PCF-94 twisted and turned up the river, its crew occasionally losing sight of the other Swifts around the waterway's sharp turns, the Special Forces captain in the pilothouse with Kerry glanced at him knowingly as he intently scrutinized the banks for any sign of movement. But none appeared, in part because the mangroves rose so thick about them on both sides that they could barely see through them. "[Deleted], they can hear us coming for miles," the captain pointed out, "and I can't remember any [expleteve deleted] thing in the history of war that runs like this -- taking friendly boats smack into VC territory so that they can be shot at." Then, "with a sigh that said '[expletive deleted],'" as Kerry put it, the captain returned to staring out the pilothouse door.
It's by Doug Brinkley. The latest version of John Kerry's final mission in Vietnam. (Warning to parents: The expletives aren't deleted in the linked piece, you get the candidate's original language. Not for kids!) Enjoy.
Now good fiction is called literature. And the Band of Brothers thing is from Shakespeare, his dramatized account of Henry V is a fine example; history with a touch of fiction, the result is art. Here's the quote:
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,Oops - wrong passage. Well, it's there somewhere. And for those parents looking for a good story with a useful moral for their kids, try this one.
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
