It looks like they are having a dedication ceremony for whatever is under that blanket… You should show up and hope they have free food. 
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A airplane crashed here in WO2. Many places here in the polder. Touching to see this family after all those years. War is bad.
Probably talked to this guy in 2019
Young lives lost 
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JoepK. histories are deep rich and perceptions are manipulable.
Many of my blood relatives fought in the US militaries in the WWII era. Some across France; then Belgium/Luxembourg; then into Germany and Austria. My own father.
Others in the Mid-Pacific islands hopping.
The one who died we remember was my uncle Billy Tisdale. A Navy man who joined up in pre-war ~1937 to “see the world”. He died in an American gunboat on the Yangtze’s River in China. 1938? A Japanese arial bomber attack “Opps” they said mistaken for a Chinese gunboat.
So lots of Why? Why? Why’s? there.
Why were the militarist segment mind-set of the Japanese attacking to try and conquer China? (national pride and the necessity for the resources depth to be able to stand world tall with the big-Boys of the far eastern colonial powers of the British; France; the Dutch and even Portugal . . . and yes; the US.)
Why was an American navy gunboat there 7000+ miles away? Alone. Hung out to dry; we would say colloquially. ( to protect American religious missionaries and business interests).
This is my concept of histories:
Our hosting a European exchange student this year is supposed to be a cultural viewpoints exchange for all of us.
She says the perception of the American response and actions in WWII as taught to the youth in the European Atlantic fronting countries was we were slow to respond then weak dragging our cautious feet for years to come and save them. Waiting 1940 to late 1944. That it was the Russians who actually expended the efforts and won the war.
Histories are indeed manipulable.
Within a few short months our dragged into it after December 7th was a one-way no-return punch you-in-the-gut bomber air raid on the heart of the aggression; Tokyo. Within four months American Marines muddy boots were on the ground in the Solomon Islands to halt the choking of off, and then expansionist invasions of Australia and New Zealand by the militarists Japanese. Then two massive naval battles sacrifices: one in the North Pacific and South Pacific to long-term weaken the built up Japanese Naval forces.
Because by then hundreds of thousands of American; British and Dutch military and civilian people were in Japanese prison and work-to-death camps. Hundreds of millions of Chinese, SE Asian and Micronesian people under the thumb of militarist Japanese resources draining occupations.
The bitterness out here on the west coast USofA was the decision that only 10% of the national effort was to go west against the Japanese. 90% of our national effort was directed to go east to Europe.
History Hint. Many down the mid-level in decision trees skewed this Top-Made decision. Our best of 10% were directed immediately; and replenishing to the West.
The to the east efforts were bulk materials; Naval escorts efforts and also edge of expansions halting and German and Italian military resources bleeding first North Africa; then Sisally and then Italy itself.
Mean while our bomber command efforts ramped up in early 1942 were costing us thousands died and lost in prison camps from bases in England to mainland Europe. 30,000. 40,000. 50,000 American sons and brothers and fathers had died when it was all said and finally done.
The boots on the ground in Western European push back to the east was assigned the British/UK on the north coastal as closest to them needing to halt air attacks; and able readily Naval support.
The Free-French and others like the free-Poles across the drylands center as could be best supported from central France.
We the US were assigned mostly the Mediterranean French south across into southern Germany as we had the depth in air supply and Naval support.
The 90/10 efforts split assignment was internally bitterly debated here. Most wanted a 50/50 efforts split. You all would have been speaking German for at least years longer has the 50/50 supporters won the decision. Millions more would have died in Eastern European death camps. A few hundreds of thousands fewer died under Japanese occupations.
Swept up the shining up of history were the voluntary divisions made up going into SS of Fashist anti-communist believer elements out of Belgium; France and even Denmark.
She was never taught this.
Would you Dutch had preferred to be forced to speak French? (Napoleon). German . . . 1940 and on? Or very conceivably Russian by the 1950’s?
True Freedom; is freedom of choice.
Insidious and often slimy as American business interests can be: you have a choice whether you would pig-out on McDonald’s; Starbucks coffees; or Amazon’s instant gratification’s.
Brute forcing ALL to be under the one-flag of any Church; or State-Belief has no freedom choice to it.
The responsibility of the aged wise is to advise and guide for retaining maximum freedoms of choice. Be conservative. Make hastes . . . slowly. Observing for negative consequences. Stop. And back up and take a different wye in the road. Say I was wrong.
Steve Unruh
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Tanks MrSteve, it was you that pointed European people fear war, true. More then ever now. I hope it stops soon.
We were taught the Americans saved us, I think also true. And probably you are right, most of them took the long route trough France. Here a lot of Canadian and Polish liberators. Polish came back the last twenty years to overtake our country, joke. Lots of Polish now and some of them are my best friends.
Cant stand fighting. First time Sarajevo and I was sick for three days, bah. Driving 240 km from my wife’s place, sitting in the car and watching damaged houses. Literally every house. And then entering Sarajevo via sniper alley. That was to much. Let me be a weener or whatever, I hate war.
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Steve, you are wrong about the language! I grew up in the border region, where Ukrainian and Russian are spoken equally, and no one ever forced me to speak only Russian or only Ukrainian! The issue of language or faith in Ukraine has been inflated by Russian propaganda from absolute zero to the level of the UN. Everyone here says what they want and believes in the God to whom they should go closer (distance to the temple). Their business is the language of civil servants, most of whom came from Russia and raised a generation that does not consider Ukrainian as their native language. The urgency of the language issue in state administration bodies is that if you want to be a chief, you must speak the state language. How would you, in America, perceive a senator who does not know English and speaks only Arabic? I appeal to all of you, the issue of language use in Ukraine is artificially inflated!
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O.K. I will edit out that one paragraph.
I apologize for bring up the conflict against DOW agreed upon policy.
Just be very aware Joni the feelings and debates over this in the US are ongoing, and strong. It divides families here too. Directly affects who or who-not gets voted into decisions policy making power.
S.U.
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Good or bad, there is multiple sides and/or presumptions to all events, and unfortunately the story teller has the burden to tell the truth but seldom does. Cudos to steve for updating his
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But lets not forget one thing Steve. American land never saw combat, civilian people never saw horrors of war with their eyes, never saw what actualy happened, who did what and when, and the only sorce of information is victorious soldiers coming back and the news. News was never honest and human psychologi isnt relyable either. Fact checking is conciderably harder in your case. So the real question is “what are Americans taught about ww2?”.
But past is past.
Let me just write an anecdote wich almost prevnted my kids being born. When the Partisan brigade marched over my wifes farm land they stoped to have a drink in her grandfathers cellar. Well, they drank one barrel 300l… when they marched onwasds, the last partisan was still visible on the hill above the house when the Nazzis brigade marched to the house. Luckly the Nazzis also were thirsty and rather thain searching for the Partisans they raidet the wine cellar. Drank a nother barrel then marched on. They left the family intact but the neighbours house was burnt to ash. Probably he had no drink.
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Yeah I’ve hear that "you Americans never. . . . " my whole life too KristijanL.
It is pretty much sweet soda pop /cool-aid sold bunk too.
Our now 16 year old Danish teenager has only know of one person who has died; a Grandmother.
The back row. Tall.
By the time I was 16 in the so call calm idealic mid-1960’s I has seen and even touched at least five dead humans. In the next 10 years that would double in numbers. Old aged died. Sudden unexpected coronary blow outs. Car wrecks. Street violences. Suicides. Logging accidents.
~6-7 millón in Denmark. All of these deaths I saw in 5 now 7 million Washington State.
And yeah while overseas WWII and Korea were exposures sanitized and we were fed heroic rightessnses stuff from Hollywood then came the in all homes the TV’s, Vietnam war. Every night for ten years we were shown many of the horrors of war. Accumulating deaths and wounded counts. Most were video tapes of a lot of the effects we imposed on others. Napalm. Running burning children. At first in stark back and white. Then in NBC Peacock color.
By the 70’s to current it has been a constant daily low grade exposures to violence’s and gone wigged-out madnesses. Here. Now. Today.
Fortunately the sheltered teenager does not watch the true realities daily TV news’s.
Fantasy reality shows are her diversions when she is not playing American high school team sports. She is always trying to drag me into watching contrived reality shows with her. Sometimes just to see what she is watching. Squid Games. Korean. Ok I did watch. But I refuse to get sucked into Big Brother.
And in the hard played H.S. sports she has seen up close and personal two bloody broken noses; two torqued out knees with screaming howling in pain girls. Surgeries, and on crutches then. Seen a couple of broken fingers sticking out abnormal in team mates. Reset. Taped. And played on in the next games.
She no longer asks or pays attention to the roadside white crosses that we have here every 5-10 miles or so. Someone. Someone’s; auto wreck died there. Memorials.
Oh yeah. “American are weak” “Americans are heartless brutal bastards” “American only care about dollars”
Most of us are very aware that as perceived on-top-of-the world “With only 4% of the worlds population Those Americans consume 44% of the worlds resources!!” that at least half of the world works hard to pull us and out culture down into the dirts. In any way that they can. Feeding us drugs.
With sometimes it seem the other half of the world wants to come here and become Americans.
The urge by many of us here now is to just close our boarders. Close our society and turn our backs on the world. OK world just see how well you’ll do without us. We’ll be fine.
Oh, yeah. We are sending you 20-40-60 million Elites who wanna be you. Sending them. Not the money/wealth/value they have squeezed out of the rest of us one additional tax or get rich scam at a time. We will take care of our own gone-bad criminals.
By far the worst wars are civil wars.
Steve Unruh
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That can’t be a picture of American girls. Only three of them are overweight.
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The JV team of mostly 8th and 9th graders TomH. from a small rural school with only ~75 students 8th thru the 12th.
Number 24 KandaceH. player her heart out and did score points. She ran, ran, ran end of court to end of court. Her shortness was her challenge.
The two in the back row bracketing the super tall German exchange girl were also on the Varsity team. Mid-season one Varsity player brought back to give her more playing time. And give the JV’s then at least three ball handlers.
The Varsity team were much taller overall with the one excellent ball handler, super 3-point shooter 8th grader. The rest 10th and 11 graders. The Varsity did well regular season. Winning 75% of their regular season 20 games. Did win one of three post-season play-off games. Next year mostly as 12th graders fully expected to make state play-offs.
1016 high schools in the State of Washington.
Next for our gal will be fast-pitch baseball. Her first experience. Be again on the JV team.
I and others recommended Track & Field. She’d be able to be very good at Javelin, Discus, and Long-Jump. Nope. Nope. Nope. She want active teams sports.
T-e-e-n-a-g-e-r-s.
Have to let them make as much as possible their own desisions. Make their own mistakes. Early mistakes leads to early maturity.
S.U.
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Technically, that is not true. The Aleutian Islands, which are off the coast of Alaska, were invaded by Japan. More famously Japan attacked Hawaii but they didn’t invade.
On the east coast german Uboats sank 100s of commercial ships mostly with supplies destined for Europe. The U-Boats information was mostly kept wrapped up.
The politics were pretty tricky because there was a strong pro-Nazi movement prior to WWII. There were legitimate fears they didn’t have enough support to join the war on the side of the allies.
One movement was with the
then that morphed into
Given the pro-communist movement in the 1920s, makes me wonder if the stock market crash in 1929, was an orchestrated panic. (my conspiracy theory radar went off when I started putting stuff together.)
German immigrants had their hands in the civil war as well since they got ousted from Germany. They bought farms, thought they were going to make a killing raising sheep, flooded the wool market, and cotton was taking off, which also helped tank the market. So they were going broke.
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I don’t think this is quite possible or even realistic, it will take at least whole generation to do. We do need to get the trade balance much closer to even. It would help with a lot of issues.
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Ofcorse, but you know what l ment.
I will not post pictures of the crimes that happened here on our land, but there are plenty on the internet.
Maybe l just post this one, since it isnt graphic.
This pictures of a roadside orchard is from just a short drive from where l live. On these apple trees the nazzis hanged 100 hostiges. For a lesson. For people to see. Children.
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You folks have very real horror stories and still have issues with live bombs.
I wasn’t trying to discount it. I was just pointing out Japan did invade part of our territory.
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I understand yes.
Here its real rare luckly nowdays. Althugh a few years back someone did dig out a huge plane bomb and hauled it away with his tractor. Bomb squad was not happy 
South has it bad thugh. But thats from the 90s.
I now work with two guys from the Soča region, border of Slovenia and Italy. In world war 1 one of the worst battles in Europe took place here. It was mountain warfere on extremely hard to reach places. I asked one of them if there is still any weapons and such in these mountains. He sayd “the Italians spent 2 years hauling stuff on those mountains, and retreeted in 2 weeks. What do you think?”
Aparently, over a century later, there is still a batlefeald up there.
He says they occasionaly climb up and harvest a few cannon shells, bring back and ignite for new year… he says not one has failed so far, even after all that time. l will not comment on this being a good idea thugh…
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They still find live artillery rounds from the civil war in the 1860s down south. A whole battle field would have been looted by now. There is too much money in civil war artifacts now, if they wouldn’t have been looted much earlier for scrap metal.
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Kristijan,
I think it does make a difference: I have never seen and don’t want to do so. Seeing from a distance what has been going on in the Ukraine and Gaza and imagining what it would be like if it was happening right here at home is scary. I don’t want to think about it for very long. I can only try to imagine what it would be like. I hope it never happens here.
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I agree Steve but I’m a firm believer in keeping my powder very dry and plentiful.
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One thing we Americans share with a few other peoples around the world are annually reoccurring natural disasters.
Japan
Turkey
Iran
Mexico
Guatamala
Others like the Caribbean areas
Much blown, shaken, flattened to ground; and burnt to the ground destructions. With complete loss of all infrastructures. Loss of life.
The recent LA fires areas. They look like intense war zones.
As if the LA area had been hit with five small nuclear bombs.
A “weak” people would curl-up; give-up, and run away.
As can be seen we rush in to help and mitigate.
So quite the thing for a “morally corrupt” “morally bankrupt” people and culture, eh. As we’ve been my whole life smeared by the Red Soviets. Now by the radical Muslims. And now by our Progressive weak-minders. Why would any woman march for those who would want her to cover completely her “wicked” body. Advocate and support those who would treat her as a life-long house servant and the baby-maker? Why would any right minded Gay or Lesbian march for the same?
Not morally bankrupt. But very, very tired of 80 years of time after time of pulling smug folks’ chestnuts out of their fires that they fear to combat.
73 now; and I lose count now of the times we’ve been called to arms, and arming.
The families youngest who went Army was in the last deployment go-to against ISSIS-land of eastern Syria. Biden era. Biden deployed.
He saw deaths and destruction. He endured daily shelling and rocketing. A medic his role was not to strike back but to save lives. Quite the courageous young man. He pays a price with constant headaches and violent dreams.
Britain of the past did not fold and give up. Absorbed. Absorbed; and lashed back.
So who won WWII? Quite a bit it was the British and their Commonwealth partners. And then the Russians. And then the US.
In Britain and in the U.S. back then too many of the Have’s Elites are on record as having counseled conceding; rolling over concessions to the Fasists. Their fear of losing their wealths and influences drove their attitudes and outlooks.
So melt off the fat and weenies; the weak minded; the weak-spirted from America and you will find deep broad core of grunt, deep dig down folks. Like in many other countries. Finland. Vietnam. Afghanistan.
The sure road to defeatism and subjugation is letting the home-grown elites know-betters run a culture.
Steve unruh
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