• Editor’s note:
• Today, August 16, 2020, the U. S. will note 170,000 COVID-19 deaths,
• By the end of the week, the U. S. will surpass 175,000 virus deaths,
• Exceeds combined military deaths of 3rd, 4th highest war casualties,
• 3rd highest = WW I, 116,516 dead/4th highest = Viet Nam, 58,209 dead
• No day of mourning, no flags at half staff, no pronouncements,
• No national sympathy, yet Trump mourns his brother at his golf resort.
• What happened to America?

+ V-J Day, 75 years ago this weekend

“On August 14, 1945, it was announced that Japan had surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, effectively ending World War II. Since then, both August 14 and August 15 have been known as “Victoryover Japan Day,” or simply “V-J Day.” The term has also been used for September 2, 1945, when Japan’s formal surrender took place aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, anchored in Tokyo Bay. Coming several months after the surrender of Nazi Germany, Japan’s capitulation in the Pacific brought six years of hostilities to a final and highly anticipated close,” by History.com. Read more

+ “In Memoriam: Fiske Hanley, World War II Veteran And ‘Special Prisoner,’ 1920-2020”

“Fiske died Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020, exactly 75 years after the atomic bombing of Nagasaki dealt the death blow to Japan and secured his freedom. His Aug. 15 funeral coincides not only with V-J Day, but also with the day he emerged from his insufferable dungeon to see sunlight for the first time in months.

“The Greatest Generation is quickly passing away, but the virtues of men like Fiske endure as invaluable examples to young people as they head into increasingly dark and uncertain times,” by John Brown, The Daily Wire. Read more

+ “The day of U.S. victory in the Pacific is often forgotten. Survivors hope its lessons won’t be.”

“But remarkably, as the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in Asia approaches, on Saturday, Aug. 15, few remembrance ceremonies are planned, and it’s not because of COVID-19.”

On each anniversary, there’s no return of veterans to the battlefields, as with D-Day celebrations in France. No gathering of national leaders. No bugles sounding taps above freshly manicured graveyards.

VJ Day, as the anniversary of the allied victory over Japan is called, receives far less attention than Victory in Europe, or VE Day, on May 8,” by Cindy Sui, NBC News. Read more

+ “Trump refuses to learn the lessons of World War II”

“It is worth remembering what the United States got right and wrong after 1945, because today we labor under a uniquely ignorant president who thinks that the 1918 influenza broke out in 1917 and that it “probably ended the Second World War.” Not knowing much about history (or anything else, other than self-promotion), President Trump seems eager to fritter away the best decisions of the Greatest Generation while repeating its worst mistakes,” By Max Boot, Washington Post. Read the text here

+ Will Bunch: 2020 defeated America because of Americans, not just Donald Trump

“Yes, America surely suffered because there was a bozo at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who gave permission not to wear masks and wanted to “liberate” states with high infection rates while promoting quack cures, but let’s not forget the 62 million Americans who put him there because they wanted to preserve a caste system that celebrated white supremacy, even for the many whites without a job or health insurance. Or, to be honest, the millions more who detest Trump but who as “nice white parents” look the other way on segregated schools or hospitals, as long at they can get admitted to the ones with the new machines and the experimental drugs.

“The pandemic defeated America not so much because of Donald Trump but because of America, by Will Bunch, The Philadelphia Inquirer. Read more