I was too young to go to Vietnam. On my 18th birthday I went to the little post office in Central City, Colorado, where I was working at the time, to fill out my draft registration. The tiny woman behind the counter told me "Oh, we won't be needing that now." The war was winding down and young men were coming home. My friends, a few months older than me, had had to fill them out. "Don't call us,"the tiny lady said,"we'll call you." And that was that.
Many of my uncles had gone to fight after Pearl Harbor. My own father, much younger, ended up in the occupation forces in Japan. I was reminded of all of this because of today's date, June 6th. D Day, as it has become known, is actually a generic term for the day of a specific attack. But the most remembered D Day, June 6th, 1944, was the day Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy which was the beginning of the end of the war in Europe.
Not far from where I live here in Long Beach. Boeing maintains its operations building aircraft. They have been here in Long Beach since the war effort that helped make D Day possible. With so many young men off to fight the war, women stepped in to keep manufacturing moving. The Farm Securities Administration photographers I like so much recorded a number of these women at work, I include here one such photo, which I have edited in my peculiar way. I am hoping someday in the future to have a series of these images that will include both the men and the women of that era who stepped into the breach.
War is still with us. And while it is, every day, people act upon their beliefs and step up to do what they believe is right. In a free society, that might mean paying your taxes, joining up, helping make care packages, writing letters to soldiers or senators or even protesting the notion of war. Because that's what freedom buys us and it has been purchased again and again by people willing to step into the breach.
Tim Bulone is an ardent observer of life on the swirling blue marble. He creates fine art and canvas prints which he likes to sell from time to time at http://www.MyFamilyArt.com He is an early morning pedestrian in Belmont Shore, where he resides with his wife and a variety of noisy and bed-hogging pets.