Blog - Page 113 of 167 - Stew Ross Discovers

Aunt Gwen passed away last week.

Upon hearing the news, I paused to reflect on the interactions I had with her those many years ago. She was married to Uncle Hal, my mother’s brother. This somehow led me down the path of thinking about my three uncles. Besides being related to me, they had one thing in common: they all fought in World War II.

Signing of the Japanese surrender on board USS Missouri, 2 September 1945. Photo by U.S. Navy (1945). PD-US Government image. Wikimedia Commons.

P-47D-40 Thunderbolt. Photo by Kogo (2006). PD-GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2. Wikimedia Commons — Thunderbolt. Photo by Kogo (2006). PD-GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2. Wikimedia Commons

My father’s brothers fought in the Pacific: Uncle Pete was in the army fighting in the Pacific (Burma) while his brother Bill commanded a sub chaser (his ship tied up to the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay to protect it during the formal ceremony ending the war). Uncle Hal was a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter pilot stationed in England and his 97 missions were to attack key German targets over Europe.
Read More Quiet Heroes from the Greatest Generation

Committee of Public Safety

Now here is the ultimate oxymoron. This committee was first set up in April 1793 for the purpose of “protecting the newly established republic against foreign attacks and internal rebellion.” By July 1793, the committee was acting as the de facto French government and its citizen’s rights were about to become severely compromised.

The committee’s twelve members were given broad powers over military, judicial, and legislative issues. Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) and his radical right hand man, Louis Saint-Just (1767–1794), were appointed to the committee in July 1793 following the elimination of the moderate Girondins. Read More