I did what I did in good faith in hopes Proud American and the crew who fought her would be spread out west as there are still several GunTrucks over here in the east.
Papabear, you generously donated Proud American in good faith, you acted through love in memory of her crew.
That was wonderful, to sell her to anyone would be dealing in blood money. But you acted through love.
If everyone in this world did everything through love, then we wouldn't need Gun Trucks. We wouldn't need standing armies. We wouldn't need military funerals. That would be a good world.
But everyone in this world is NOT acting through love. So we have standing armies, we have wars, and we have military funerals. It's stupid, but that's what we got.
I remember reading a history of D-Day in Normandy, the author was Beevor.
He wrote about the pocket where the German Wehrmacht was getting trapped by the Allied advance and brutally annihilated, the Falaise Pocket.
A German commander of some rank named Meindl was commanding a parachute group during the crisis. He was disgusted by German trrops who thought only about getting themelves out of the trap, instead of working together to get themselves ALL out.
He said something about how the whole experience made him realize for the first time how stupid war was, because the best human beings (the selfless ones who acted for others) were the first ones lost and that the selfish ones (the ones who were all ego, worried only about themselves), survived.
His name was Meindl (sp?). An interesting guy. He wasn't focused on himself. even in the middle of a disaster at that, that's leadership. Like you, Papabear. He focus was on the other.
You want to honor the others, the crew of the Proud American. That's love. You really can't go wrong when whatever you do is done as an act of love. You should sleep easy knowing that.
And don't hesitate to give this guy a call, anytime. He invited that!
