{"id":84031,"date":"2022-12-07T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=84031"},"modified":"2022-12-07T12:39:42","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T18:39:42","slug":"84031","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=84031","title":{"rendered":"Memorial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>20 years ago, this blog observed the Pearl Harbor anniversary by noting the annual gathering of hundreds of survivors &#8211; and the time, men in their late 70s on up &#8211; and noted the jarring statistic that at that time, the generation of World War 2 veterans was passing on at a rate of about 300 per day.   This blog observed the demise of the last known World War 1 veteran &#8211; a man who&#8217;d enlisted as an ambulance driver after lying about being 14 years old &#8211; probably 3-4 years after it started, half a generation ago. . <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-4-1024x804.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-84032\" width=\"369\" height=\"293\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/com\/US\/wireStory\/hawaii-remembrance-draw-handful-pearl-harbor-survivors-94659972\">Today, perhaps a dozen doughty, well-nigh indestructible centenarians<\/a> will have made the trip to Hawaii. Today, the death rate has slowed, if only because, according to VA statistics, about 98.5% of those who served have died. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-5-1024x683.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-84033\" width=\"454\" height=\"303\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-5-1024x683.png 1024w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-5-300x200.png 300w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-5-768x512.png 768w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-5-1536x1024.png 1536w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-5-2048x1365.png 2048w, http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/image-5-450x300.png 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 454px) 100vw, 454px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And, unconscionably, much of the knowledge that the Greatest Generation had seems to be passing with them.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>War is hell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some things are worth fighting for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mankind is not inherently good, but is in fact capable of horrors beyond human comprehension that are simultaneously utterly banal and commonplace.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some things are worse than fighting &#8211; but not many.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes, you need to get past the things that divide us to survive and prevail.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I fear our nation &#8211; really, the whole of Western Civilization &#8211; has Santayana&#8217;d itself; forgotten its history, and thus condemned itself to repeat it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>UPDATE:  I&#8217;m not going to say the Millennial and Z Generations don&#8217;t have <a href=\"https:\/\/julietteo.substack.com\/p\/that-such-men-lived?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=546732&amp;post_id=89207845&amp;isFreemail=false&amp;utm_medium=email\">people like this<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m saying the zeitgeist is not favorable for creating a lot of them. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>20 years ago, this blog observed the Pearl Harbor anniversary by noting the annual gathering of hundreds of survivors &#8211; and the time, men in their late 70s on up &#8211; and noted the jarring statistic that at that time, the generation of World War 2 veterans was passing on at a rate of about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-and-its-making"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84031"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84041,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84031\/revisions\/84041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}