posted on Jun, 6 2014 @ 03:25 PM
There is a line from Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific" that says "They, like their victories, will be remembered as long as our generation
lives. After that, like the men of the Confederacy, they will become strangers. Longer and longer shadows will obscure them, until their Guadalcanal
sounds distant on the ear, like Shiloh and Valley Forge."
That passage has always stuck with me because it is true. Later and later generations do not appreciate just what the older generations had to endure,
and this is sad. Especially when we are talking about things so grand. WWII crawls further and further into history. There will always be those who
understand and appreciate what these people endured, but they get fewer and fewer by the year. I would imagine that to truly appreciate it you would
have to have been there, and there comes a point when all one has for understanding is what was recorded in one manner or another.
Perhaps more modern occurrences will be better documented and will allow future generations to get a better sense of what was going on, but there is a
plethora of WWII footage in general, yet one still cannot get a true sense of just what the individuals had to go through by watching film alone. Even
reading accounts is not enough. I suppose that is just a natural thing, but it is still sad.