Open Thread (12/7/2009)

Its Pearl Harbor Day. It was 68 years ago that commenced America's involvement in the conflict we call World War II. 10 days later my parents took me and my 8 month old baby sister to Danville to say a hurried goodbye to my Uncle Francis Hays as the troop train stopped on its way to the West Coast. He was bound for the Pacific. We wouldn't see him again until February 1944 when the malaria he contracted in the jungles of New Guinea sent him home. His older brother, Russell was stationed in California, training navigators for the Army Air Corps. His younger brother Wayne was a paratroop, destined to spend Christmas 1944 in the snows of Bastogne.

Here at home we pitched in. The Civil War cannon that sat on the court house lawn had been my perch for the Monticello Municipal Band's weekly concerts. It along with all the scrap metal that Piatt County could collect went to the blast furnaces to be recycled into weapons of war. Gasoline was rationed. So were tires, and butter and sugar and all the commodities that were essential to equipping and supplying the troops. We planted Victory Gardens, bought Savings Stamps and War Bonds. We saved newspapers to be recycled for the war effort. Women, employed for the first time, replaced men in the factories. We were a united people at war with enemies clearly identified with no objective but to emerge from the furnace of war stronger and victorious.

We have fought wars since then but none in which the objective was so clear, the enemy so defined, and the nation so united. Not since have we felt that unity of purpose that carried us through the storm to a safer shore of what became a "bitter peace". Let us recall that sense of purpose that bound us together so long ago and resolve that the wedges of partisanship will be over come and we will emerge from the current conflicts a stronger and more unified nation at home in a peaceful world.

Three Score and Ten Plus One

Keith Hays

On December 7th, 2009 at 11:58 PM, City of Champaign Taxpayer (not verified) said:
 

If we're paying an officer to be on administrative leave, he had best be doing something.  I would feel cheated if he were paid to sit at home all day.  How does he pose a danger in an office shuffling paperwork?  Being in the office increases the likelihood s/he can meddle with evidence, or otherwise be inappropriately exposed to something s/he is not supposed to know about case being worked.

What business does the Urbana IMC have condemning the City of Champaign's government?  Governmental actions by City of Champaign impact them, too, and when they come over here and buy something they pay sales tax, etc.

They need to keep to their side of the tracks.   Shouldn't that be "their side of Wright Street"?