My dad should have been drafted in the summer of 1944. The draft board in north St. Louis didn’t call the guys who had older brothers overseas: they did call them when the Korean War started in 1950.
After Basic Training, Infantry Training, Advanced Infantry Training, Airborne/Parachute Training and then “Trainer Training,” he settled into performing in three ‘combat experience’ shows a week. That left plenty of time to enjoy beer at 50¢ a pitcher and handle the Company Clerk job for a hundred or so recruits. As Clerk, a part of his job was to write-up Army Money Orders for the guys who sent most of their pay home.
Some of those soldiers also needed him to write short notes to their families.
You see, most of the men who volunteered for Airborne did it for the few extra bucks a month in their pay and because they felt it was their duty. American paratroopers were well trained, well, Bubbas – dirt-poor, often lightly educated rural white boys with an unquestioning love of country. During training they were told about the pitifully brief combat lifespan of Airborne troops, but, they still worked hard to earn their wings. They knew they were situations where the Army needed expendable soldiers. They volunteered.
Have you looked at the crowds at a Trump rally? Twenty-first Century Bubbas?
That love of country, alas, devolved into a hatred of those unlike them. Devotion turned into fear – and a need to strike out at imagined enemies with different color skin, different theology, different background, or, well anything different.
Yet, they believe an orange billionaire can Make America Great Again. They don’t question the logic of slapping China on trade while trying to get China to corral North Korea. They know that Mexico will pay for that wall. They seem unconcerned that the ‘huge’ tax cuts the President champions will widen the gap between haves and have nots, or, that ‘repealing Obamacare’ will leave many of their friends without health coverage.
Remember, Trump carried Missouri last year by 19% [ http://enrarchives.sos.mo.gov/enrnet/default.aspx?eid=750003949 ], with him getting nearly three times the vote of Clinton in Webster County and almost twice Clinton’s total in Greene County, home to Springfield and Bass Pro. So, it isn’t a surprise that Trump is visiting Springfield this week. Missouri is Trump Country.
Now, I started this month with a family trip to Branson – where you can still get both American flags in the Five and Dime on Main Street. A couple of years ago, the south service road of I-44 in Webster County was lined with pick-up trucks, each sporting large Stars and Bars.
As we saw in Virginia, Trump’s ardent supporters include “fine people” carrying Nazi and Confederate flags. Just as the President refuses to confront Russia’s Putin, so too he avoids condemning David Duke and his Klansmen, and, the rest of that “alt-right” nationalistic crowd. In Charlottesville an Army of Bubbas came looking for a fight. They found one.
When The Donald visits Springfield – undoubtedly with Governor SEAL at his side – I’ll bet lunch money he passes several large Stars and Bars. His undisciplined, untrained Army of Bubbas will be well represented, their blood boiling for a fight.
So, what will media coverage of this visit tell the world about Missouri?
Submitted by Glenn Koenen, WCD Member