I'm Back to Say Thank You

When I read the remarks of Jerry Pipes in the Facebook Eureka Patch article this morning, I was moved to submit a message of thanks to all voters who gave me their vote on Tuesday. 

2012 marks year 50 for my personal involvement as a candidate in elections all the way from local to even being a Reform Party candidate for U.S. President in 2000.  Much of what Jerry said is true, but by being involved in such a varied group of elections, I was required or at least asked to develop position papers on a wide variety of issues that the average citizen is not aware of, so this writing will mention a few as I relate an interesting review of this remarkable week.

First is the amount of money poured into the effort by so many, many outsiders of our state, but personal fortunes of up to $7,500,000 by one, with constant requests of donations by many candidates. I kept my pledge and outside of my filing fee and some gas used to go to meetings, I managed to spend about $10 for my cards. 

One of my shortcomings was that I had to take treatment for pneumonia during the month of July, which caused me to miss four appearances that included some endorsement sessions that I had counted on. 

But as Jerry said, the election was an exercise in futility as we who ran in the Congressional Democrat primary, without a bad word said about anyone, as they were all good guys, only gathered about 28,000 votes while the party received something over 80,000, so in one way losing was the best. 

Finally, as Channel Five was signing off, Larry Connors mentioned our race, for the first time the media gave us any attention as he ended by saying, "And George Weber was in there to the end." Or something like that.

But Wednesday was the great night as I tired of the Olympics and watching the Cardinals losing 15-0, I browsed to PBS and was reading my autographed copy of the new Tom Brokaw book  "The Time of Our Lives" in which he spoke of "Who we are, Where we've been, and where we need to go now" caused me to reflect that I lived through that greatest generation of which he spoke in earlier writing and was shown in great detail in the PBS show on the great war.

That along with the beautifully staged Olympics on the site of utter devastation there in WWII.  Then the injustice of the killing of millions in the death camps of the same war, reminded me of three mailings in recent days from Islam members warning of religious troubles in their communities, the needs of our country in Autism and for the disabled, all providing the master race for victims of the Holocaust.  

But until the shooting at Milwaukee, little was spoken in the political field of these items, although on a visit to the St. Louis Zoo on August 4 when it was so hot even the animals stayed in, I sat and observed visitors and was amazed that about 10 percent seemed to be autistic or had some disability.

Then the showing of the battle of Iwo Jima and the utter chaos of the final 30 days on Okinawa where we lost 12,000 dead and 60,000 wounded while killing 90,000 Japanese and about 120,000 natives in the process as we readied ourselves to send 500,000, including me to invade Japan. They had 5,000,000 soldiers plus all the civilians ready for us so those of us on the way had bad feelings of our future which was merely to kill every one until we were killed ourselves shown in a sign in the film drawn by a serviceman stating, "Golden Gate in 48, Breadline in 49" showing the frontline attitude of a long drawn out and costly war.

But then suddenly the Cruiser Indianapolis was shown leaving Hunters Point in San Francisco Bay on a secret mission. The mission was to deliver two Atom bombs, which was all we had then, to Tinnian to be used to hopefully end the war.  After the ship dropped off the bombs it was sent toward the Phillipines but torpedoed and sunk with the loss of over 800 of the crew. 

The film had an interview with a survivor who told of the scuttlebutt among the crew during the non-stop voyage to deliver the secret mission, that the boxes contained a supply of scented underwear for General MacArthur. This after he described the four  or five days in the water or on rafts as they awaited rescue after they were sunk.  

So for those who care enough to wonder why I continued to be active, now going on 88, with some health problems—It was because I was saved from "killing until being killed," I pledged my life in service to my country way back in 1945 and it has been a good life as I lived the part that Tom Brokaw speaks of so well in his books.

It has been a great and full life. 

What is ahead for our nation and its people is yet to be experienced. So thanks again for your interest.

The Old Blogger, George Boots Weber