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TODAYS QUICK QUOTE - "Why Can't Our Leaders Learn From Their Terrible Wars?" |
| (11/11/2014) |
| Todays Quick Quote is long, comments made by Calhoun resident Victor "Gene" Whytsell, 87, about World War II, a short time before his death in 2011. "All these years I've spoken little about the horror of war, but I can tell you it has been with me every day of my life, in one way or another." "I always thought it sounded like excuses, but my brain took a beating." "I have a reason for telling you this now, if you'll bear with me." "So many people I know from here suffered deeply from the war, some had really terrible lives, some killed themselves and a lot of them died early." "Some battles lasted a week, day and night, without a break. A few times the temperature dropped to 25 below zero. A body got really cold." "I've seen hundreds killed, and on many days I thought it would be my day to die." "I never got a scratch, and I know why. They were all praying for me back home." At a prison labor camp at the end of the war, Whytsell nurtured a relationship with his enemy, a German soldier, embracing each other an weeping upon his departure back to the states. "So why can't our political leaders learn from their terrible wars, when people like Fritz and me can love one another?" "I've often thought if our leaders could spend ten minutes in combat, we wouldn't have many wars." "That's what I want to say, after all these years." "Despite my long suffering about all this, I'd go and soldier again." |
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