When I was a very young man, I rode around with my dad as he went from field to field down in Santa Maria. It was just about my favorite thing to do. My dad was the foreman of a company that grew flowers for the seeds. He was always going to some field because flowers needed a lot of attention to get the best yield.
I wasn’t the youngest in the family. My little brother was six years younger than me and not much older than a toddler. This was in the ’50s. Dad wasn’t much of a talker, and so I just sort of watched him as he tried to make himself understood by the Japanese workers who were sent over from Japan to work in our fields.
World War II had taken a lot of lives, as had the Korean War, and Korea had just been declared an Armistice and a lot of folks needed a job. We had lost a lot of the men and women of our country, and so it seemed the right thing to do. I’m sure that there are some who would like to debate that today, as we are a different country than we were back then.
There were two guys that worked for McDonald Flower Seed Company who had been in both of the conflagrations. This isn’t a story about them, as they barely spoke of the sacrifices they had endured. I just listened on the rare occasion that they talked. I know my dad was happy to have them working for him. They were hard working and quiet.
My Pop was exempt from the draft due to his left leg being shorter than the right, and because as a farmer he was doing critical work for the country. Eisenhower was President and the country, although fresh from the horrors of a world at war, was looking forward not back. I was a little too young to ask any questions about the war. I just knew about it by what mom and dad said very occasionally at the dinner table.
Anyway, our country was just getting to the point where the catastrophic loss of life was fading from daily conversation. I do know that the men and women who had witnessed the horror were very proud of their sacrifices and country. This country just isn’t like that anymore and it’s a shame. It’s unfortunate that almost all the veterans from those terrible experiences have gone to their maker now, and even more unfortunate that the veterans that are still here see what has happened after all their sacrifices.
Korea, Vietnam, the mid-east and our inability to control our own borders makes it plain to anyone that we just don’t have that pride of being an American anymore. Eisenhower was a patriot and a politician. He knew we would lose thousands at Normandy, but he also knew that the enemy was getting entrenched and a sacrifice had to be made. He also recognized the military industrial complex was as much a danger to America as the wars had been. He warned us to be wary of the partnerships that would endanger our way of life and he was right.
If you believe otherwise, take a look at the representatives we have asked to be our champions in Washington. Congressmen and senators go to Washington from modest backgrounds and return home, if they ever come home, as millionaires. Or they are sleeping with the registered spies from China and they are bragging about that. Yes, Eisenhower was responsible for a massive loss of life, yet the survivors still thought he was a hero.
It’s unfortunate that a man of his foresight and leadership isn’t around to witness and warn us again of the strangle hold of the dot com companies that control so much of our lives. We have a government that has canceled almost all the oil producers from the United States and then called upon OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) to send us some oil.
If you think our gas prices are high now, wait until all of our gas comes from the same countries we have been saving from the evils of Muhammad. These are the same countries that had us on our knees a few years ago. Do any of you remember the long lines at the gas pumps? The days when your license plate determined what days you could buy gas?
I know there are liberals that read my scribbling and I know they are faithful to the progressive ideology. That’s good. I would not like to live where everyone stood for the same principles, but to cancel the oil pipeline on one day in office leads me to believe that the interest of the common man are not being looked after.
The next few years are certainly going to be interesting. It reminds me that when my kids were old enough to understand, I told them that there would soon be no border to the south. It looks like that day is coming soon. Someone told me that God never gives you more than you can deal with, if so the world will be a better place. You all take care of each other because we are all we have.
God bless.
