What are kids reading in school these days?

[Jstpssng]

It's been a while since I've done any constructive reading (aside from owners manuals, DIY books, and of course TBN ) On a whim I just picked up a 1992 book about WWII called "Band of Brothers" which really drives home what our veterans sacrificed to get us (USA citizens) where we are today. I highly recommend this book to anyone. And thanks again to any veterans who made sacrifices the rest of us only read about.

:thumbsup:

 

[Tdog]

Jstp . . .

That is a great book - - I have a copy autographed by Steve Ambrose, a colleague of mine at the University of New Orleans. If you have not seen it, HBO did a 10 episode mini-series based on his book. I highly recommend it. And, Steve wrote several other books on WWII that are well worth your time, especially works on the Normandy invasion. He was a prolific author, and wrote on many other topics, from a multi-volume work on Ike to Lewis and Clark to the transcontinental railroad.
I read in spurts and have been too long without a book in my lap - - you may have inspired me to put the laptop down & start reading again.
Jack

 

[dmccarty]

Our oldest has had some course work on WWII but not alot/enough. By the time I was in fourth grade I was consuming books especially about WWII. My kids have not taken to books as I did but they seem to be catching the bug though our youngest has some real reading difficulties that we and the school cannot figure out.

The one great asset they have, that I did not, was TV. The History, military, science, etc channels are great. Yesterday I was watching a documentary about a photo album that was from the assistant commander at one of the Auschwitz death camps.

The documentary was also showing the contents of the Jacob's photo album. If you have seen photos of the death camps showing people being processed at the trains those are from this photo album. The album was found by a camp survivor after she was liberated. She was in SS guard barracks that had been turned into a hospital and in the night she got cold so she opened a drawer looking for a blanket. Instead she found the album.

She had been sent to camps from Hungry. Everyone in her family and most of the people she knew died in the camps. 80% of the arrivals were gassed the day they arrived. When she opened the album it was photos of people she knew. Including some of her family as they were processed. Shortly after the photos were taken they were all dead.

What are the odds she would find the photo album?

By the time I was my oldest kids age I had already seen far worse photos of dead soldiers and civilians in WWII. And I had seen the stack of dead bodies in the death camps. I think because I had seen these photos at a young age I am somewhat inoculated to the horror they represent.

Most of the photos in the documentary were not graphic which is what makes them so much worse. The officer's album was just like any other photo album. People happy. Having fun. Smiling, Singing and having a great time. What was scary is the normality of these people. The realization they were killing 1,000 people a day but then they could sit down to dinner with white clothes and wine.

One thing I did not know was that Dr. Mengele, who was in some of the photos and these are the only known photos of him at the camp, had not only an MD but a PhD. He was a man who was at some level very intelligent. But yet he and the rest of them were normal looking people who were just Evil.

My inoculation has worn off though in some respect now that I am older. When I see the babies, the toddlers, the older children in the photos and films it still shocks me. The idea that these people could compartmentalize their mind to send children to be gassed is still numbing. I know they did not view these people as people but as worse the people. Thus you can only use the word Evil to describe them. Some of the images in the films I have seen still haunt me.

While I was watching the documentary both kids came into the room. I wanted to change the channel because the youngest is too young to understand. And I did not want the oldest to have to deal with the photos. But they NEED to know what happened. They need to know that what the Germans did is NOT unique. The Germans were, as one of the researchers said, "professional", in what they did. They were very efficient.

Other people in other times have done the same as the NAZIS. And in some cases killed even more people even the 20th century. What is scary is that the mindset that allowed the SS guards to do what they did is not unique to any nationality or time.

And that lesson ALL children should know. No matter how painful it is to deal with the reality. I left the channel as is and answered some questions....

Later,
Dan

 

[Iplayfarmer]

If you've read about WW II and you want more, read A Man Called Intrepid. It's about the underground intelligence operations during WW II. The book is fascinating!! It put the war in a whole new perspective for me. Stevenson does a great job of supporting every point he makes and the history the book represents is well documented.

 

[TCowner]

We need more history taught in the public school system. The events of August 1945 seem to be clear in the minds of many folks but the events of December 1941 somehow get lost.

There is a local demonstration in August each year where lighted peace candles are sent out on the local lake (pond) to remember the devastation caused by the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But for some reason the attack on Pearl Harbor goes unremembered. There is no such display. Perhaps its the difference between an 80 degree day in August and a 10 degree day in December.

Its great fun at work to quiz the young whipper snappers on history questions. Most responses I get are just plain humorous but some are downright scary. I asked one such whipper snapper to give me an approximate time line when the two bombs were dropped on Japan. The respondent thought long and hard and said, "It was 1991." When asked what would have caused the United States to do such a thing, the response was, "President Bush was really irritated with the Japanese over a trade deal that had gone bad."

At first you have to think the person was being funny. When told of the actual reason President Truman made the decision I was told, "Hey look, I wasn't born then, give me a break."

I should see the bright side of the response. George Bush Sr. was the president in 1991. So for that the respondent gets some credit.

 

[dmccarty]

We need more history taught in the public school system. The events of August 1945 seem to be clear in the minds of many folks but the events of December 1941 somehow get lost.

Amen. I have had arguments with very smart well educated kids just out of college on this issue. They really believe the US was wrong to drop The Bombs.

What they are not told about is that the estimates for the initial invasion of the southernmost Japanese Home Island was 100,000 KIA. The real deaths would come home when the landing took place on the plains around Tokyo. The carnage on the Japanese side would be horrendous. People do not remember or have not seen the film of Japanese women throwing their children off cliffs to their deaths in the Mariannas Islands to prevent their being captured. The Japanese population was prepared to fight to the death. Westerner's have a hard time understanding this idea nor the mindset of the Japanese.

Besides the Kamakaze planes they had boats and subs. It was expected that Japanese civilians would be suicide bombers by attacking Allied soldiers with hand carried mines, demo charges, and even bamboo spears with dynamite on the end.

Reading what the surviving Japanese leadership was thinking during those times is like listening to aliens. They knew they were loosing. They knew they were sending men on suicide missions. But they really could not handle the though of surrender. It was to ingrained in them that surrender was not possible. This went from the top down.

I was watching a documentary a few months ago and they were interviewing a women who I think was on Okinawa during the US invasion. She and other women in children where in a cave with a Japanese soldier. US soldiers or Marines were outside the cave trying to get them to surrender. The women were talking about how and when they would kill themselves and their kids. The soldier said that they did not need to die and persuaded them to surrender.

After the women and kids had left the cave he blew himself up with a grenade. Which is how the women wished to kill themselves and the kids.

Would the entire population of Japan have done this? No but a huge number would have. Many Germans in Berlin committed suicide after killing their women and children to keep the Russians from getting them. And the Germans did not have a culture that was so deeply inoculated with the idea that surrender was impossible.

Nine months after the Russians took Berlin there was a huge spike in baby births. The births were not because the Berliner's were celebrating the end of the war. The Russians did the partying with unwilling participation of the women in Berlin.

Later,
Dan

 

[forgeblast]

Agent Zigzag--is a good book too. Shows a different side of the war. Through the eyes of a double agent. Also describes how they used magicians to stage dissinformation to make this agent look like he was doing his job.
Although only based on events Castners Cutthroats is a good read also.
If you have not read The guns of August you should. Its about the start of ww1. Its probably the best book I have ever read on the subject. Especially the events surrounding why it started.