This day in history - May 8, 1945: Victory in Europe Day

By Richard K. Barry

Here's that famous picture again. When I sat down today to do the little bit of research required to post the "This day in history" feature I realized pretty quickly that this was Victory in Europe Day, known as VE-Day. I was thinking that somebody, once upon a time, branded WWII as "the last good war." I guess.

I was part of the generation whose parents were formed first by The Great Depression and then by WWII. I grew up listening to the stories particularly from my father and uncles who were in the service after Pearl Harbor was bombed. Lucky for my father, he was stationed in Hawaii after the attack and never saw any real action because it was never attacked again, although no one knew that would be the case at the time.

I had uncles who marched with Patton's Third Army across Europe.

Many years ago when all of my uncles were still alive and one evening were regaling us with stories about their wartime experiences, one of my cousins, with wide eyes, excitedly said that he wished he could have been there. Every one of the uncles answered, almost in unison, "no you don't."

So much for the glory of war.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)