Reading to remember the sacrifices that some U.S. military personnel made during World War II: 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska’s Frozen Wilderness. When Seward bought the territory in 1867, nobody could have imagined that the interior would end up being useful for the yet-to-be-invented heavier-than-air military airplane, including the B-24 that Leon Crane was co-piloting in the crash that led to his fellow airmens’ deaths and his own remarkable survival.
Of course, most of the military deaths in Alaska occurred in the Aleutian Islands battles (see Justifying our total war against Japan for some Fairbanks museum exhibits on this subjectd). It’s tough from today’s perspective to see the military value of these fights, but we can still reflect on the memory of those who were willing to sacrifice their lives in the cold for the perceived value at the time.
I was in Juneau yesterday. Seward doesn’t look too happy about the future state that he purchased:
The best way to honor fallen veterans is to accept into our hearts the intention of eliminating the concept of war altogether.
Right – and the best way to eliminate the concept of war altogether is to master Esperanto because no two countries that adopted Esperanto as the official language ever went to war with each other.
@jdc Did you know the word “trofidema” isn’t in the Esperanto lexicon?
Alas, Cain meet Abel — would that we could escape our inner Neanderthal-slaying nature. 🙂
Spouting crazy ideas like “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” still gets you crucified.