to p-38 pilot and to all the younger folks...
p-38 I want you to think about this, it is not a critique or slam...
you have taken the name of a type of plane and the pilots from the USAAC used in desperate missions in a desperate time...they were boys mostly, a little older than you are now...they should have been in high school or college thinking about girls or football or home or records or the lastest dance craze...instead they were sent, due to the need, and poorly undertrained, into the Pacific or Europe when men and women for the fascist mindset decided they had the best way and everyone else needed to die....the British were almost on their knees and being plummled and were dying by the droves, the French were furious at their leaders that surrendered basically without a fight while their women and kids were dying by the thousands; the Japanese, having watched AMERCIAN newsreals showing we were inferior mongrals and wouldn't/couldn't fight...so these young boys became men in a time in a time when the forces of fascism bet their racially superior men could beat the mongrel nations of the world under the idea of democracy...
They flew their p-38's over vast tracks of the Pacific with NO landmarks or real ability to fight....but they learned, and somehow those young American's, and British, and Australian and New Zealanders, etc...did it...against terrible odds and horrible conditions....many disappeared....
You go look up on the 'net' about my old US National Guard Divison, the 38th ID (they were orginally the 32nd ID) and their taking of the Owen Stanley Mountains....read about Sgt. Roger Young (not much older than you now went he died)....
Read about the rape of Nanking, and just what happened to the Aussies and Brits that surrendered to the Japanese...especially when the world 'mourns' Hiroshima....
Read what US Marine General 'Howling Mad' Smith said when he came ashore at Tarawa and saw the red beach flags just inches from a dead Marine's hand....
Or the brave men that took Pegasus Bridge....that NEVER quit....
Or the Aussie Coastwatchers, so many that disappeared....
Or those brave Germans that tried to STOP the war, and failed....and disappeared...
I want you all to think and remember....and wonder....and NEVER forget...