just_a_gals_art
75 years ago, today: Its over…in Europe, VE Day
75 years ago, today the Germans surrendered to the Western Allies and ended WWII in Europe.
The war would continue for 4 months longer in the Pacific (although it wasn’t clear then it would be over that quickly), but the massive casualties from the War in Europe were mainly over.
Liberated prisoners in the Nazi “concentration camp” would continue to die in huge numbers as the effect of the starvation conditions that existed there, especial over the last few months, would cause the death rates to continue to raise, even after the camps had been liberated and medical teams were brought in to help them.
Major food relief operations had been part of basic military operations over the last several months, with mass airborne food drops being made to civilians in Holland and other areas by both the British and US air forces while combat operations were still going on.
But the majority of the deaths of WWII (at least in Europe) would come to an end.
The rebuilding of a shattered world would begin and one of the major reasons why the US eventually became the true super power it became, was because of our leadership in the post WWII recovery process and efforts.
Today, when the world is struggling with a similar global crisis, US leadership has been so sorely missing.
I never thought I’d live in a world where we would be so remiss and missing from the huge events of our time. We have retreated to a point where our individual states are fighting the struggle by themselves, without any real national plan and we will continue to wallow in this insanity until our national leadership is changed.
During WWII we suffered some of the greatest casualty rates we had seen as a modern country, however the deaths we have suffered in the last few short weeks (over 76,000 as of today) are nearly what would have taken nearly a year of intense combat in WWII.
And it didn’t have to been this way. There are many other countries who acted quicker and smarter (although certainly not all) and instead of calling this all a hoax, worked to prepared and protect their populations.
We may be passed the darkest days of this pandemic here. Days when the death rate was doubling every 3 days and could have led to millions of deaths, had some of our state leaders not finally stepped in because of the lack of a federal effort.
But to quote Churchill for our current struggle.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Churchill said that in Nov of 1942, when the war would continue on for nearly 3 years longer.
While I don’t expect our current pandemic to be a struggle for that long, we are certainly only at, maybe, “the end of the beginning”.
Please be safe and practice good social distancing practices. Right now, and for many months ahead, this will be our only real weapon against the re-ignition of this horrible pandemic.
And to my friends, I miss you all. Hugs, Becky
75 years ago, today: Its over…in Europe, VE Day
75 years ago, today the Germans surrendered to the Western Allies and ended WWII in Europe.
The war would continue for 4 months longer in the Pacific (although it wasn’t clear then it would be over that quickly), but the massive casualties from the War in Europe were mainly over.
Liberated prisoners in the Nazi “concentration camp” would continue to die in huge numbers as the effect of the starvation conditions that existed there, especial over the last few months, would cause the death rates to continue to raise, even after the camps had been liberated and medical teams were brought in to help them.
Major food relief operations had been part of basic military operations over the last several months, with mass airborne food drops being made to civilians in Holland and other areas by both the British and US air forces while combat operations were still going on.
But the majority of the deaths of WWII (at least in Europe) would come to an end.
The rebuilding of a shattered world would begin and one of the major reasons why the US eventually became the true super power it became, was because of our leadership in the post WWII recovery process and efforts.
Today, when the world is struggling with a similar global crisis, US leadership has been so sorely missing.
I never thought I’d live in a world where we would be so remiss and missing from the huge events of our time. We have retreated to a point where our individual states are fighting the struggle by themselves, without any real national plan and we will continue to wallow in this insanity until our national leadership is changed.
During WWII we suffered some of the greatest casualty rates we had seen as a modern country, however the deaths we have suffered in the last few short weeks (over 76,000 as of today) are nearly what would have taken nearly a year of intense combat in WWII.
And it didn’t have to been this way. There are many other countries who acted quicker and smarter (although certainly not all) and instead of calling this all a hoax, worked to prepared and protect their populations.
We may be passed the darkest days of this pandemic here. Days when the death rate was doubling every 3 days and could have led to millions of deaths, had some of our state leaders not finally stepped in because of the lack of a federal effort.
But to quote Churchill for our current struggle.
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Churchill said that in Nov of 1942, when the war would continue on for nearly 3 years longer.
While I don’t expect our current pandemic to be a struggle for that long, we are certainly only at, maybe, “the end of the beginning”.
Please be safe and practice good social distancing practices. Right now, and for many months ahead, this will be our only real weapon against the re-ignition of this horrible pandemic.
And to my friends, I miss you all. Hugs, Becky