Why should have the United States entered WWII (or WWI for that matter) earlier than they did?
WWII, actually, I'm not sure actually entering the war earlier would have helped, but it's reasonably clear that Congress should have smelled what the planet was cookin' and increased the military budget at least two years earlier. The size of warships (and maybe even the number of them) was restricted by treaty, but it might have been nice to send those first soldiers into combat with rifles made after, say, 1919. There's a lot of preparatory spending that could have been done in advance; instead, it was a concurrent mad scramble.
the Allies accepted as many German Jewish immigrants as the Nazis would allow
Lesson #1 of the US Holocaust Museum is, "Dude, let those people on that ship into a US port, will you? They're refugees." That was 1938, but, in 1938, they were already refugees.
Even something like the previous Armenian genocide was relatively hidden from public awareness.
This is like that Doonesbury cartoon about the Cambodian refugees testifying before Congress. "But wasn't it secret bombing?" "Well, the bombs fell on my head. They weren't secret from me!"
There was the civil war in Spain where Hitler and Mussolini intervened massively while the U.S. and Europe honored what was supposed to be a universal arms embargo, and the then Soviet Union gave some aid, but not as much as it could have.
I think the Republicans were doomed in that war. Not just because they had no professional army, but because they weren't prepared for the total war tactics the Nationalists employed. (There were a lot of peremptory executions.) The only parties who got involved in that war were parties who thought they could grab some power thereby. England and France saw no profit in it, and so abstained; and the US, while officially neutral, in fact was full of anti-communist businessmen selling to the fascist side. Kind of a rehearsal for the early years of WWII itself.
No direct relatives that I know fighting in WWII. My parents' generation was too young. One grandfather only had sight in one eye due to a childhood accident, and I don't know what the other grandfather was doing at the time (although he was well past 45YO at the time of Pearl Harbor, so he likely didn't fight).
One grandmother was a nurse's aide at the time, but I don't know where she worked other than I'm pretty sure she didn't go overseas. Also not sure about my other grandmother, except that she had TB at some point during the early '40s, so she probably didn't do much.
My grandfather on my mother's side - for Japan.
My father's oldest brother - for the allies.
(And he was a marine in the pacific so in a way - they were fighting each other. But he was never less than lovely to my mother.)
All sleepy. Wants a vacation, I does.
I'm sleepy FROM my vacation! Somehow, in CA I kept waking up at 4:30 in the morning, but last night in NY I couldn't fall asleep. How is it that I'm on eastern time in CA and western time in NY? Not on, dudes.
My grandmother's brother - flew bombers over Europe.
My grandfather's brother - Army something or other. I think he was at Omaha Beach, but I'm not for sure.
Both survived the war and it turns out, I have the only surviving picture of my grandma's brother with his plane. Being evil, I've been using it as leverage with my uncle who has all of the family pictures from my grandparent's house.
My grandfathers helped dig the Panama Canal. We didn't have applicable wars, but we sure did know manual labour.
Can I haz more sleep?
Oh, and, I'm not buying clothes any more, but I noticed this lovely top in the clearance catalogue J Jill sent me with my recent purchase. So pretty. A bit too sheer, but pretty.
I'm too lazy for an actual meara, but...
I did not know that Waltzing Matilda meant anything other than a dancing woman named Matilda. Cool to know.
Liese, I love the love story in your family's tree. I think it sounds so romantic.
Finally, Ellie loved lemons as a baby. Weird, but she would eat them whenever she could get them from my water.
Oh, and Ellie is the only baby girl in her daycare *not* to have her ears pierced. I get asked when I'm going to do it all. the. time.
