Puffs

There are times . . . troubles . . . and then the world . . .

Do you sometimes wonder just what the world’s going to do? Things like the Nebraska Legislature last week had almost 66 percent of its members vote to limit abortions. However, it was just shy of 66 percent and that was not enough. Democracy is not always easy.

On the national scene U. S. Senator Tim Scott recently said: “It’s almost as if (the Biden administration) created a blueprint on how to ruin America.”

Senator Scott could have been talking about almost any of Biden’s actions in the past two plus years that has seemed to cause more troubles than they have solved.

If you’ve ever read any history at all, you know there have been plenty of times in world history when it seemed the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

WWII provided many such time for despair.

The following was sent just last week and I want to pass it on. Some of you may have read it before, but it is worth reading over again.

PEARL HARBOR:

God and “The 3 Mistakes.”

Tour boats ferry people out to the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii every thirty minutes. We just missed a ferry and had to wait thirty minutes. I went into a small gift shop to kill time.

In the gift shop, I purchased a small book entitled, “Reflections on Pearl Harbor” by Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Sunday, Dec. 7, 1941 – Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington, D. C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone.

He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet. Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet.

He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat, you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.

Big sunken battleships and other navy vessels cluttered the waters everywhere you looked. As the admiral’s tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked: “Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?”

Adm. Nimitz’s reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Adm. Nimitz said: “The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or, God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?”

The young helmsman asked: “What do you mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever make?”

Nimitz explained: “Mistake number one: The Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every 10 crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to seas and been sunk – we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800.

Mistake number two: When the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And, I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships.

Mistake number three: Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over the hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That’s why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make, or, God was taking care of America.

I’ve never forgotten what I read in that little book. It is still an inspiration as I reflect upon it. In jest, I might suggest that because Adm. Nimitz was a Texan born and raised in Fredericksburg, Texas – he was a born optimist. But any way you look at it – Adm. Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism.”

There is a reason that our national motto is: “In God We Trust.”

A O

Time and Trouble . . .

If only we knew what a difference out actions do make ‘when’ we did the action . . . maybe we’d be more careful.

I just finished a book entitled: “The Road Less Traveled.”

The book’s story tells us about failed efforts to find a peaceful end to World War I.

The setting is 1915 to 1917. At the time Germany was ready to give up, England (and France) were running out of money and were looking for peace; Russia had great internal problems with the Communist fighting for control of the country and the Ottoman Empire was near collapse.

There were contacts between the conflicting countries and the U. S. president, Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson gave a speech he thought would help the peace process entitled: “Peace without Victory.”

However, most of the countries in the conflict did not understand what Wilson intended. In fact, it seemed that Wilson did not understand how to go about establishing a peace plan.

Most of the countries involved in the conflict had leaders strongly supporting continuing the war and other strongly pushing to end the war. Seems that Wilson just didn’t know how to go about promoting a process to end the war. It wasn’t until he received advice from Herbert Hoover that the peace process had a chance to succeed. By then, it was too late as the wheels of war gained the upper hand.

The author of the book points out several very important changed that may have taken place if Wilson had been able to bring an end to the war a couple years before it actually ended.

He noted that if the war stopped in 1916 or 1917: • Russia probably would not be Communistic today; • WWII probably would not have happened at all; • The Greek-Turkey war would not have happened; • Many smaller revolutions in Germany would not have happened.

Of course mostly we do not understand what our actions today will mean tomorrow, or 50 years down the road.

Time and trouble . . . the troubles we have today are serious, but this is not the only time the human race has faced such a set of circumstance.

I could only ask for each of us to do what is right and abide by our national motto: “In God We Trust”

A O