Surviving Hard Times and War Times

Note: I wrote the draft of this entry on June 6th and then left for a conference in Birmingham.  Although it’s late, I still think the information is worth sharing.

Today is D Day when Allied troops invaded the northern coast of France.  It was the beginning of the end of World War II.  As King George VI stated in the movie, “The King’s Speech,” it was the second time in a lifetime for most British (and Americans and French) that they were at war.  Most of the world, including Germany, had suffered an extensive economic depression between the wars; many of America’s GIs had suffered from the worst drought in the nation’s history.  Truly this was the greatest generation to have withstood such travesties.

I highly recommend The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan.  The author interviewed many of the Dust Bowl survivors who recanted horrible times of dust pneumonia, blowing sand, little water or food, and a time of hopelessness.

Put the stories of World War II with the tales from the Great Depression and you have one heart wrenching episode after another.  Life is not always easy.

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