Re: The date living in infamy
This happened more than a few generations before my ripe old age of 32. I did lose my unbeknownst to me great uncle on the USS Houston a little after the Pearl Harbor attack. Sigmund Ustaszewski was a Catholic Friar, a pharmocologist(sp?), and a pharmacist and machine gunner aboard the Houston. My beloved grandfather often spoke of him in the past as if he had just talked to him the day before. It is not known to my family wether or not he perished in the night or met his maker building the burma railway. Dzia Dzia said that Sig wanted to be a doctor and help not the soldiers, but the innocent children of the war.
In a round about way I suppose I should thank hitler. If it were not for adoph I would not be here today. My great grandmother fled Poland in '40 to escape the nazis. She took with her husbandless 7 out of her surviving 13 children, the rest lost to war. Two of her children that she escaped with were Sigmund "Ziggy" Ustaszewsk, the youngest and one of the others was remaing familys oldest child, William, my grandfather. William as it is told fought 3 nazis with machine guns on the family farm with a wood axe and eventually led his kin aboard another boat to NYC. I have no idea if it's true or family story telling around the fire, but the rest is as follows.
William eventually went on to wed his beloved Nora Abrahmczyck, a childhood friend in which he lost contact with for years, who lived the next town, in the next country of Lithuania. She herself had escaped from the nazis, familyless. It was almost fate that they had both arrived in NYC, William in 40, Nora in 43. They story goes that they blindly collided on a street corner. Nora was a seamstress for the rest of the war In the US. She was a big woman, her Polish/Lithuanian cooking would give you diarrhea for a week. William Charles Ustaszewski and Nora Abrahmczyck eventually gave birth to William Francis Ustaszewski. William Francis would eventually go himself to marry the hellspawn of a scandinavian devil and give birth to myself. Jason William Ustaszewski.
A date on a calender you can look up in any old encyclopedia. A house with a stone foundation and wooden walls is still just a house. If you enter the door to the house and see pure craftsmanship on the inside walls then the house becomes a home, and that home will have a rich story behind it.
A date is just a date. Talk to your elders us young ones. Try and remember not so much dates and places, but the stories behind the people that made those dates and places have a place in our modern history books. The only thing more important than the outcome of something we read today, are the stories that made that outcome happen.
A call out to JB.
Please no mods except fo JB delete this part.
I understand that you are probably up there in age. I'm guessing early 70's.
I am about to break the rules and post something political. Maybe you can shed some on this to me via PM. And if you choose to, please just delete this political part of it and not the whole post.
At my age of 32 I just don't understand how WWII ended. It was started officially around Sept 1, 1939. The US got involved on Dec 7th 1941. The war ended, depending on the history between Aug 14th and Sept 2 1945.
Obviously the bombings on hiroshima an nagasaki largely ended he war. But what is the deal. We are into 8+ years into this war with the taliban. In 4 years we liberated all of Europe. Ended hitler, ended mousellini. Made a pact with Stalin that would lead to the cold war. But not world war. So why is it we can do all that in 4 years... But not catch just 1 guy in 8 years????????
It seem's bananas to me.
I belive that our soldiers of every branch are just as strong as our WWII military.
But I also believe that our "commanders" are also pussyfooting arond the obvious sometimes.
I believe that the commanders back in your era had more balls and didn't pussyfoot around the issues sometiimes.
To everyone.... remember your dead. Especially your war dead. honor them with all your hearts.
