Correigedor

I swear to god, I recall a song about this. Possibly Baez or Knopfler.

Reading Nevil Shute books has been fascinating. Requiem for a Wren contains what is basically a textbook case of PTSD, with ultimately tragic consequences. It never mentions the term (not coined yet) nor shell-shock (because it isn't shells per se that cause it, afterall the character was female, so what'd she know of..but Shute knew) but it..oh, reading it, it just hit me about halfway through. At that point? There wasn't an official diagnosis, but those who live it, knew it.

Just looking at the family tree stuff now, and my paternal grandmother had six other kids than my father, and my paternal grandfather had four others.

I distinctly remember seeing your sister's giant family tree map thing that had taken over her wall, and her thrill over the fact that your mother is a quadroon. I pointed out that that made her an octoroon, which is equally funny in my opinion, but she said it was irrelevant and not nearly as interesting.

I own Tenko. God, for all my war issues, I love PoW drama.

I tried to reassign kids to nameless spouses on my father's side of the tree in the software, and I think all I have to show for it is RSI and a headache. Blargh.

The Ellis Island records were a complete surprise to me, because none of them were for immigrating relatives. Just visiting ones.

Yeah, the rape of Nanking is totally ignored in history. All we usually hear about is Pearl Harbor, and the invasion of Singapore, Burma, etc., and the danger of imminent invasion of Australia might as well never have happened. Unless you watch Bridge on the River Kwai or managed to catch Tenko on PBS, like I did.

Yeah, this is not something I missed hearing about in history class. WWII was, incidentally, the first major reorientation of Australian foreign policy from the UK towards the US. The US was helping defend Australia. Britain, effectively, was making it worse.

[link]

is a good book about Battan. For a pretty military family, there was never much talk of stuff. I think having British teachers through most of highschool resulted in a fairly non USian focused history, but it was still all western focused.

Huh. I guess I am (at least) an octoroon. I shall fill that in the next time I'm asked my race.

I mean, if I'm doing the math right.

I loved the Cherry Ames books. Had my mom's with the red cloth covers. Student Nurse, Private Duty Nurse, Army Nurse, Ranch Nurse...

I am worried that family lines may cross 6-7 generations back when people from my mother's side and we think my father's side were in what became West Virginia at the same time.

My dad's family is from West Virginia.

The romance book I mentioned above quotes this little ditty that the troops sang while waiting for the reinforcements that never came:

We are the battling bastards of Bataan,
No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam;
No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces;
No pills, no planes, no artillery pieces;
And nobody gives a damn.

Noah doesn't get a cool Batman costume like mac. I almost got him this one [link] but I am cheap and $24 was too much. If Grace were healthy and at home, she'd have gotten this one [link]

As it, I bought a used one of this one [link] but it's prolly still too big for Noah.

We are the battling bastards of Bataan,

Huh. That's, um... bitter.

Here's a song US Navy Helldiver pilots sang (The Helldiver was not a great plane):

Oh Mother, dear Mother, take down that blue star
Replace it with one that is gold
Your son is a Helldiver pilot
He'll never be thirty years old
The people who work for Curtis
Are frequently seen good and drunk
One day with an awful hangover
They mustered and designed that clunk