WORLD WAR II World War II was the greatest military conflict in the history of the world. It was the first war that engulfed every continent on earth and inflicted more death and destruction on people and nations than any other recorded event. However, the most notable result of World War II, and the very thing that has been ignored by historians and scholars is that the victors, the nations forced into war by the aggressors Germany and Japan, in the most compassionate and humanitarian action in history, rebuilt the devastated economies and their political and social structures of their defeated enemies thus enabling them to become the powerful democracies they are today. It should be noted that following all previous wars, the victors ravaged their defeated enemies, taking all their wealth and property, holding executions and enslaving their population as "the spoils of victory"! The American people took no spoils or reparations in 1945; but rather assumed a great and heavy burden to insure that nothing like World War II would ever happen again. Jack Bernabucci, 1997

Cost of World War II in human lives U.S. 407,318 military and nil civilian USSR more than 13,000,000 military and 7,000,000 civilian China 3,500,000 military and 10,000,000 civilian Germany 3,500,000 military and 3,800,000 civilian Poland 120,000 military and 5,300,000 civilian Japan 1,700,000 military and 380,000 civilian Yugoslavia 300,000 military and 1,300,000 civilian Romania 200,000 military and 465,000 civilian France 250,000 military and 360,000 civilian British Empire and Commonwealth 452,000 military and 60,000 civilian Italy 330,000 military and 80,000 civilian Hungary 120,000 military and 280,000 civilian Czechoslovakia 10,000 military and 330,000 civilian For the United States, the war lasted 1,342 days (12/7/41 - 8/10/45). During this time, 407,000 Americans died preserving freedom not only for us but for the world. That averages out to be 300 a day for each day of the war. George Santayana once said, "Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it." The lessons we learned in World War II must never be forgotten.

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE I watched the flag pass by one day. It fluttered in the breeze. A young marine saluted it, And then stood at ease. I looked at him in uniform, So young, so tall, so proud. With hair cut square and eyes alert, He'd stand out in any crowd. I thought how many men like him, Had fallen through the years. How many died on foreign soil, How many mother's tears. How many pilots' planes shot down? How many died at sea? How many foxholes were soldiers' graves? No, freedom is not free. I heard the sound of taps one night, When everything was still. I listened to the bugler play, And felt a sudden chill. I wondered how many times, Those taps meant "Amen", When a flag had draped the coffin, of a brother or a friend. I thought of all the children, Of the mothers and the wives, Of fathers, sons, and husbands, With interrupted lives. I thought about a graveyard, At the bottom of the sea, Of unmarked graves in Arlington. Freedom is not free!! by Kelly Strong, 1988

"When you go home Tell them for us and say For your tomorrow We gave our today"