Hitler vs Obama - 25 Signs That America Is Rapidly Becoming More Like Nazi Germany

From the Worth-Reading-Blog. Dead-on-Balls accurate. Enuff said.
Monday, May 14, 2012

The United States of America is becoming more like Nazi Germany every single day. In fact, the Nazification of America is almost complete. The parallels between Nazi Germany and the United States of today are going to absolutely shock many of you. Most Americans simply have never learned what life was really like back in Nazi Germany. Under Adolf Hitler, Germany was a Big Brother totalitarian police state that ruthlessly repressed freedom and individual liberty. Under Adolf Hitler, Germany adopted socialism, dramatically increased government spending and raised taxes to astronomical levels. Under Adolf Hitler, abortion became legal in Germany, the government took over health care and Christianity was pushed out of the public schools and out of public life. To prove all of these points, I am going to use extensive quotes from two sources. Kitty Werthmann was a child living a peaceful life in Austria when Hitler took over her nation. Her eyewitness accounts about what life was like under Nazi Germany are invaluable. In addition, I will also be quoting extensively from author Bruce Walker. He is the author of a book entitled "The Swastika Against The Cross: The Nazi War On Christianity", and during his years of research he has uncovered some absolutely jaw dropping stuff. After reading the information in the rest of this article, there should be no doubt that the United States is becoming just like Nazi Germany.
Nazi Germany shows us what happens when the state becomes god. Adolf Hitler was certainly more racist than the leaders of America are today, but other than that there are very few differences between the road that Adolf Hitler led Germany down and the path that the United States is being led down.
The following are 25 signs that America is rapidly becoming more like Nazi Germany....
#1 Nazi Germany was a totalitarian Big Brother police state that constantly monitored everything that German citizens did.
Today, the bureaucrats that run things in the United States are also absolutely obsessed with constantly trying to monitor us. For example, there are now control freaks that inspect the lunches of preschool students in certain areas of the country in order to make sure that they contain the "right" foods....
A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because the school told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.
The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the person who was inspecting all lunch boxes in the More at Four classroom that day.
The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs - including in-home day care centers - to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.#2 Nazi officials often used their positions of power to force others to do dehumanizing things.
This is exactly what the TSA is doing today. It would be really easy to imagine some Nazi military officers forcing a young woman to walk back and forth in front of them several times so that they could admire her form. Well, that is what TSA agents are doing to American women today. The following comes from a recent Wired article....
TSA agents in Dallas singled out female passengers to undergo screening in a body scanner, according to complaints filed by several women who said they felt the screeners intentionally targeted them to view their bodies.
One woman who flew out of Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport several months ago said a female agent sent her through a body scanner three times after the agent commented on her “cute” body.#3 In Nazi Germany, even women and children were treated like dehumanized cattle.
Well, today schoolchildren are being strip-searched all over the United States. Down in Georgia, one student was recently strip-searched by public school officials after another student falsely accused him of having marijuana.
Another student down in Albuquerque was recently forced to strip down to his underwear while five adults watched because he had $200 in his pocket. The student was never formally charged with doing anything wrong.
#4 In Nazi Germany, authorities could stop you and search you at any time and for any reason.
In America that is not supposed to happen, but it is happening. Last year, TSA "VIPR teams" conducted approximately 8,000 "unannounced security screenings" at subway stations, bus terminals, seaports and highway rest stops.
If you are not able to produce "your papers", there is a good chance that you will get thrown into prison in America. For example, a 21-year-old college student named Samantha Zucker was recently arrested and put in a New York City jail for 36 hours just because she could not produce any identification for police.
#5 Under Adolf Hitler, there were massive increases in government spending.
According to eyewitness Kitty Werthmann, just about everyone was getting some sort of a handout from the German government....
Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing.Of course, as I have written about so many times before, this is the exact same thing that we are seeing in the United States today.
#6 Under Hitler, taxes were raised dramatically in order to pay for all of these social programs.
Kitty Werthmann says that "our tax rates went up to 80% of our income."
In the United States our tax rates have not gotten that bad yet, but when you total up all federal taxes, all state taxes, all local taxes, all property taxes and all sales taxes, there are a significant number of Americans that do pay more than 50% of their incomes in taxes.
#7 The economy of Nazi Germany was very highly socialized.
As Ludwig Von Mises once correctly observed, the German economy under Hitler was not capitalist at all....
What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.The United States has not gotten to the level of Nazi Germany yet, but we do have a socialist president and back in 2009 the cover of Newsweek boldly proclaimed that "We Are All Socialists Now".
#8 In Nazi Germany, if you conducted business outside of the socialist paradigm you were heavily punished.
Well, the same thing is happening in the United States today. For example, the FDA has been runningelaborate entrapment schemes that are designed to entrap producers of raw milk. Any "unauthorized commerce" is dealt with very strictly by the U.S. government these days.
#9 In Nazi Germany, government regulation of business got wildly out of control.
The following is eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann....
My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business.
If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.
We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.Of course we all know about all of the ridiculous regulations that the U.S. government is burdening businesses with today. In every day and age control freaks love to stick it to business people that are just trying to make a living.
#10 Under Hitler, free market capitalism was absolutely hated.
National Socialist theologian Gregor Strasser once stated the following....
We National Socialists are enemies, deadly enemies, of the present capitalist system with its exploitation of the economically weak … and we are resolved under all circumstances to destroy this system.And as I have written about previously, a lot of Barack Obama's strongest supporters are socialists and communists, and an increasing number of Americans are showing disdain for capitalism. In fact, some recent polls show that young adults in America actually have a more favorable view of socialism than they do of capitalism.
#11 In Nazi Germany, the health care system was taken over by the government.
The following is more eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann....
Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna . After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.Of course we all know what is going on in America today. The government spends nearly half of all health care dollars and Obamacare is going to mean more government control over the health care system than ever before.
#12 Under Adolf Hitler, abortion was made "safe and legal" in Germany.
It turns out that Hitler was a huge fan of the founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger. And as I wrote about recently, it was Sanger that once said the following....
"The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."Hitler echoed this sentiment when he wrote the following in Mein Kampf....
"The demand that defective people be prevented from propagating equally defective offspring. . . represents the most humane act of mankind."After the Nazis came to power in 1933, abortion was very quickly legalized. By 1935 there were approximately 500,000 abortions being performed in Germany every single year.
Yes, Hitler very much encouraged Aryan women to have as many children as possible. But he also very much viewed abortion as a way to reduce "undesirable" populations.
Unfortunately, something very similar is happening today. Abortion clinics are often located in the "poor" part of town, and a staggering 72 percent of Planned Parenthood's "customers" have incomes that are either equal to or beneath 150 percent of the federal poverty level.
#13 In Nazi Germany, killing the "defective", the "weak" and the "disabled" was considered to be a good thing because it made the German people "stronger".
Unfortunately, many in America today have fully embraced the eugenics principles which were so dominant in Nazi Germany.
A 3 year old girl named Amelia was recently denied a kidney transplant because she is considered to be "mentally retarded", and we all remember what happened to Terri Schiavo.
Not only that, the editorial page editor of the Detroit News recently proposed putting contraceptives into the drinking water in Michigan because the state has become a "breeding ground for poverty".
This kind of sick thinking is rapidly spreading in America, and that is a very frightening thing.
#14 In Nazi Germany, education was nationalized and God was kicked out of the schools.
The following is more eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann....
Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles, and had physical education.Unfortunately, the exact same thing is happening to U.S. public schools.
#15 Under Adolf Hitler, God was mocked and religion was pushed out of every corner of public life.
Just check out the following information uncovered by author Bruce Walker....
The Nazi tract Gott und Volk was distributed in 1941, and it describes the life cycle of German youth in the future, who would: “With parties and gifts the youth will be led painlessly from one faith to the other and will grow up without ever having heard of the Sermon on the Mount or the Golden Rule, to say nothing of the Ten Commandments… The education of the youth is to be confined primarily by the teacher, the officer, and the leaders of the party. The priests will die out. They have estranged the youth from the Volk. Into their places will step the leaders. Not deputies of God. But anyway the best Germans. And how shall we train our children? Thus, as though they had never heard of Christianity!”Once again, this parallels what we are seeing happen in America today. Last year, a high school student in Southern California was suspended for two days because he had private conversations with his classmates during which he discussed Christianity. He was also banned from bringing his Bible to school ever again.
For many more examples of this phenomenon, please see this article: "18 Examples Of How Christians Are Being Specifically Targeted By Big Brother".
#16 Adolf Hitler fully embraced the theory of evolution, and Darwinism provided the intellectual foundation for much of Nazism.
At a Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg in 1933, Hitler declared that "higher race subjects to itself a lower race . . .a right which we see in nature and which can be regarded as the sole conceivable right".
Hitler was obsessed with the "survival of the fittest" and he took this theory to its logical extremes. The following is how one author put it....
"Hitler was influenced above all by the theories of the nineteenth-century social Darwinist school, whose conception of man as biological material was bound up with impulses towards a planned society. He was convinced that the race was disintegrating, deteriorating through faulty breeding as a result of a liberally tinged promiscuity that was vitiating the nation’s blood. And this led to the establishment of a catalogue of ‘positive’ curative measures: racial hygiene, eugenic choice of marriage partners, the breeding of human beings by the methods of selection on the one hand and extirpation on the other"But of course we have no problem with teaching this flawed theory to our children in the public schools of America today.
Haven't we learned anything from history?
#17 Under Adolf Hitler, the state started taking over the job of child care.
The following is more eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann....
When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology.Of course this is exactly what is happening in America today. Children are raised by day care centers and public schools, and most parents spend very little time with their own children.
#18 In Nazi Germany, it became fashionable to mock Christians and the Christian faith.
The following is more from author Bruce Walker....
By 1935, the virulently anti-Christian leader of the Hitler Youth, Baldur von Shirach issued a regulation that prohibited any child from belonging simultaneously to a church youth group and the Hitler Youth, and gradually membership in the Hitler Youth became almost obligatory – parents were told that their children would not get jobs in the civil service unless they belonged to the Hitler Youth and employers were told not to hire children who did not belong to the Hitler Youth. Christian schoolchildren who did not belong to the Hitler Youth or its female counterpart were routinely beaten up by young Nazi thugs.
Boys inducted into the Hitler Youth were required to explicitly reject Christianity by oaths like this: “German blood and Christian baptismal water are completely incompatible.” At Hitler Youth center at Halle, was the following prominent statement: “The Faith fanatics, who still to-day slide down on their knees with faces uplifted to heaven, waste their time in churchgoing and prayers, and have not yet understood that they are living on the earth and that therefore their task is of a thoroughly earthly kind. All we Hitler people can still only look with the greatest contempt on those young people who still run to their silly Evangelical or Catholic Churches in order to vent their quite superstitious religious feelings.” Those that believe that the Nazis embraced Christianity are delusional. The following are direct quotes out of Hitler Youth training manuals....
“Christianity is a religion of slaves and fools.”
“How did Christ die? Whining at the Cross!”
“The Ten Commandments represent the lowest instincts of man.”
“Christianity is merely a cloak for Judaism.”
This is definitely where things are going in America today. Our television shows and our movies regularly mock Christians and they are always portrayed as the "bad guys".
In addition, the name of Jesus is rapidly becoming a forbidden word. Some U.S. courts have even ruled that it is unconstitutional to use the name of "Jesus Christ" during any official government meeting. The following comes from a recent WorldNetDaily article....
But the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are standing by their victory in a U.S. circuit court decision that states even "a solitary reference to Jesus Christ" in invocations before the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners' meetings could do "violence to the pluralistic and inclusive values that are a defining feature of American public life."#19 Under Adolf Hitler, sexual promiscuity was actually encouraged.
The following is more eyewitness testimony from Kitty Werthmann....
My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn't do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful. There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly. As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn't exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy.Of course the exact same thing is happening in America today. If you doubt that your tax dollars are going to promote sexual promiscuity, then I have a video for you to watch. It is a video from the American Life League, and you can view it right here. DO NOT let any children watch this video. It is done by a pro-life organization but it is very graphic. I have posted a link to it because it is imperative that parents understand what is really going on out there. But please be warned that it is very, very graphic.
#20 Once the Nazis took power, they rapidly implemented gun control legislation and later on they took all of the guns away from the populace.
Kitty Werthmann remembers very well what happened in Austria under the Nazis....
Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long after-wards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.Last year, more than 10 million guns were sold in the United States, but gun control legislation continues to become even more strict, and it is only a matter of time before the federal government tries to disarm the U.S. population completely.
#21 Under the Nazis, large numbers of children were taken away from good families.
The following is more from author Bruce Walker....
Parents who resisted Nazi anti-Christian indoctrination too strongly simply had their children taken away from them. The Nazis even forbade parents to give their children Christian names and ordered babies instead to be given names like Dietrich, Otto or Siegfried. The home teaching of Christianity by parents in the home was forbidden. Not content with simply driving Christianity out of public schools, Himmler banned all Confessing Church seminaries and instruction in 1937 and he closed all private religious schools two years later.Doesn't this sound exactly like where America is headed?
In many states, CPS ("child protective services") has become one of the most feared government agencies. All over the nation, thousands upon thousands of children have been removed from good homes because the parents were not raising them "correctly".
You can read about one particularly bad CPS horror story right here.
#22 Under Adolf Hitler, society became very highly militarized.
Of course we are seeing the same thing in the U.S. right now.
Sadly, this is even happening to our public schools. According to blogger Alexander Higgins, students in kindergarten and the 1st grade in the state of New Jersey are now required by law to participate "in monthly anti-terrorism drills". The following is an excerpt from a letter that he recently received from the school where his child attends....
Each month a school must conduct one fire drill and one security drill which may be a lockdown, bomb threat, evacuation, active shooter, or shelter-in place drill. All schools are now required by law to implement this procedure.This is the kind of thing that a sicko like Adolf Hitler would try to do, and it is not good for our children.
#23 In Nazi Germany, the prisons were absolutely packed.
Right now, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world by far and the largest total prison population on the entire globe by far.
Even children are being arrested in alarming numbers. In a previous article, I described how one 12-year-old girl down in Texas was recently arrested for spraying herself with perfume and how police were recently sent out to collect an overdue library book from a 5-year-old girl in Massachusetts.
#24 Under Adolf Hitler, there was basically no freedom of speech.
In the United States today we are told that we still have freedom of speech, but that freedom is being "chilled" in thousands of different ways.
For example, the FBI is now admittedly recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States. The following comes from a recent article by Mark Weaver of WMAL.com....
If you call a radio talk show and get on the air, you might be recorded by the FBI.
The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet.
The FBI says it is not playing big brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence.So please speak freely on talk radio. Just realize that the feds will be recording every single word.
#25 Under Adolf Hitler, paranoia was standard operating procedure.
In Nazi Germany, every citizen was a potential threat and everyone had to be constantly watched for suspicious activity.
Of course the exact same thing is happening in America today. Just about anything you do can get you labeled as a "potential terrorist" by the government.
According to a new DHS report, the following are some of the beliefs and ideologies of potential terrorists....
-"fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)"
-"anti-global"
-"suspicious of centralized federal authority"
-"reverent of individual liberty"
-"believe in conspiracy theories"
-"a belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack"
-"a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism"
-"impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)"
-"insert religion into the political sphere"
-"those who seek to politicize religion"
-"supported political movements for autonomy"
-"anti-abortion"
-"anti-Catholic"
-"anti-nuclear"
And the definition of "suspicious activity" has become so broad in America that it pretty much covers 100% of us. In 2012, the following activities are considered to be "suspicious" by the FBI....
-shielding your computer screen from others
-paying with cash
-acting "nervous"
-using multiple cell phones
-requesting a specific room at a hotel
-traveling with a large amount of luggage
-refusing maid service at a hotel
-staying in your room for too long
-changing your appearance
In addition, the U.S. government has decided that it would be a really good idea for all of us to spy on one another. The "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign looks like it could have been pulled right out of a Gestapo security handbook.
But America is not supposed to be about spying on one another and reporting each other to the secret police.
America is supposed to be about liberty and freedom.

6 June 1944 D-Day

Tired, wet, miserable, 3000+ miles from home. Could you have had the courage to disembark and do your job in the face of machine gun fire and entrenched sharpshooters? Men falling everywhere always wondering if maybe the next one was going to be you. Blood and body parts everywhere, dead men washing in and with the waves. Think about who you are today could you have done this? Could you have been there on those beaches and fought to survive and liberate Europe from the NAZI stranglehold? Regular guys like you and me did, they fought and died that day; acts of courage and valor too many of us will never know and luckily will never have to know. Damn this country produces such great people too many we will never know the names of. Thank you to all of those that fought that hellish morning in the first wave. We will never forget what those soldiers who died there did for mankind. Thank a vet.

It is the VETERAN, not the preacher,
who has given us freedom of religion.

It is the VETERAN, not the reporter,
who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the VETERAN, not the poet,
who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer,
who has given us freedom to assemble.

It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer,
who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the VETERAN, not the politician,
Who has given us the right to vote.
- Anonymous


Casualty estimates for Allied forces vary, but range from 2,500 to more than 5,000 dead on D-Day. Adding to the confusion is that D-Day books and histories often count wounded, missing and troops taken prisoner.

On its Web site, the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England, says an estimated 2,500 Allied troops died. The U.S. Army Center of Military History in Washington, D.C., numbers 6,036 American casualties, including wounded and missing. The Heritage Foundation in Washington estimates 4,900 dead.

"It's very difficult to get accurate figures. People get buried. Bodies disintegrate. Evidence of the deaths disappeared. People drowned," said John Keegan, author of "Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris."

He estimates 2,500 Americans and 3,000 other Allied troops died on D-Day.

More than 19,000 civilians in Normandy also died in Allied bombing before and after D-Day to soften up German defenses. And Allied air forces lost nearly 12,000 men in April and May 1944 in operations ahead of the invasion, the D-Day Museum says.

Even as the ranks of veterans who survived the assault and the push into Germany thin with time, work on tallying the dead continues.

Carol Tuckwiller, director of research at the National D-Day Memorial Foundation in Bedford, Va., has spent four years combing through government, military and cemetery records for names of Allied dead on D-Day. She hopes to have a figure by next year.

"We feel like we're probably going to end up with a total of about 4,500 fatalities for both the Americans and Allied countries. Right now, we have about 4,200 names confirmed," she said. "Of course we realize we may never be 100 percent complete."

The Rosary and the Corps

I got this from the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler at Nicedoggie.net. Great blog as the posters love to ridicule this administration. They post great military stories like this one there. Some people think that when I do this I am just being lazy, not the case, these stories need to be out there. They need to be read, talk to your friends show them what kind of people our military is made of and has always been made of.


The Rosary and the Corps
Posted by: LC 0311 crunchie I.M.H. in Our Military, The Long War
5:00 am

In July of 1942 a young man was undergoing the rite of passage into the United States Marine Corps at Parris Island, South Carolina. He was raised a poor farm boy, the second eldest son in a family of 18 children, in the rolling flat-lands of western Ohio. Working the fields as soon as he was old enough to hold a shovel, the harsh existence of Depression era life had made him a strong, muscular, and tough man. He had already proven himself a brave one also, personally running moonshine from the family still to Al Capone. But nothing in his hard scrabble life had adequately prepared him for boot camp. He was wondering just what the hell he had gotten himself in for.

When he had graduated high school just a few short weeks before he had watched as his friends received their draft notices. His older brother had already been drafted into the Army the year before and had been at Pearl Harbor on December 7th. He remembered the anxiety as his family waited for word, helpless to do anything, and had decided that he would not have someone else decide his fate for him. So while his friends were drafted, mostly into the Army, he decided he would volunteer. Since no one else from his small class had thought of the Corps, he figured he would be the individual and become a Marine.

Now the ruthless Drill Instructors at Parris Island were tearing away that individualism, rebuilding him into a Marine. And he had reached his breaking point. As he sat in the wooden barracks of the depot’s rifle range he was at a low point. Physically he could handle it; the back breaking labor and PT, the physical abuse, the intense pain of throbbing muscles being ripped and torn into even larger, more powerful ones, if that was possible. No he was used to that. But boot camp is more psychological than physical, designed to push men beyond what they thought was their breaking points, preparing them for the ultimate psychological trauma of other men trying their best to kill them, and the equally traumatic experience of trying to kill them back. Wallowing in his despair and self doubt, one night at mail call he received a spiritual boost from an unexpected source.

The package came from his aunt, also his Godmother. He had never been overly close to her, she living some distance from the family farm and not a regular fixture of his life. But she had never forgotten her sacred commitment to see to his spiritual upbringing and had sent him the only thing she could think of to help him in his upcoming travails, an inexpensive rosary. Knowing him as she did, she had figured he had neglected to bring one with him, which of course he had. He was not one that you could easily accuse of being a faithful Catholic, yet the Church had been a regular feature of his adolescence, even if all of it’s teachings had not quite ingrained themselves with him. So he was somewhat taken aback by the sudden care package. He was even more surprised by the affect it had on him. The simple show of compassion from an almost stranger steadied his failing resolve and allowed him to reach just that little bit deeper, just that little extra push to break the wall and tap into the last remaining mental reserves and make it one more day.

A few weeks later he marched across the parade deck of Parris Island a United States Marine. He completed infantry training and was transferred to the 1st Marine Division just in time to be stranded with them as a green replacement on Guadalcanal. In his pocket throughout the hell on earth of that battle was the simple white rosary. And it was there with him when he finally received his first mail on that God forsaken island, his draft notice ordering him to report for induction into the U.S. Army.

It was with him again when he stormed the murderous beaches of Peleliu. It went with him when he transferred to the 3rd Marine Division, and when he landed at Iwo Jima with them. He kept it when he was on occupation duty at Sasebo and Iwakuni, and when he toured the devastation of Nagasaki. And he carried it when he served post war in nationalist China, where he met his Russian emigre wife.

After the war he decided that farm life was no longer for him and that he had found a home in the Corps. Now back with the 1st MarDiv he enjoyed peace time service in California with his new wife. The rosary which had accompanied him through the hell of the Pacific War was packed away in his footlocker, no longer needed. But when North Korea invaded the South in 1951 and American forces were routed and pushed into the Pusan Perimeter, the Corps went back to war. And so did the rosary.

It was with him as the 1st Marine Division made history at Inchon and pursued the retreating North Koreans to the Yalu. When the Red Chinese poured across the Yalu and routed the Eighth Army, the rosary made the Long March to the Sea from the frozen hell of the Chosin Reservoir.

After the Korean War he stayed in the Corps, serving a total of 26 years until 1968. The rosary, again no longer needed, was packed away and forgotten. In 1981 he moved back to Ohio, his marriage over, everything he owned packed into a 1960 Dodge pickup and a run down travel trailer. When he came home he met his eleven year old nephew for the first time, one of 70 or so he had never met. This one though wanted to join the Corps, and in his youthful naivete he pestered the old salt for tales about his life as a Marine. And he was accommodating, regaling the young boy with stories of bar fights, WestPac cruises, liberty spots, and of course the sanitized version of war. His brother, the young boys father, and his wife took the old Marine in and allowed him to live with them. He even moved to Florida with them. When the boy had grown and himself enlisted in the Corps, the veteran decided it was time to get him ready for boot camp. He rode him hard, giving him a taste of the tender mercies he would soon receive at Parris Island. Of course his nephew didn’t understand any of this and resented the old bastard, not grasping the true motives of his uncles abuse until he himself was at boot camp.

Like his uncle before him, only 45 years later, the young man reached the inevitable breaking point. And also like his uncle, his came while he was at the rifle range. Then one night at mail call, he received his own package. In it was the very same rosary. His uncle had not written the accompanying letter, that was left to his mother to do. But she did tell the story behind it. Holding the cheap string of beads, staring at the crucifix, reading the history which it had born witness to, and knowing of the strength it had given his uncle, he too was able to reach just a little deeper, dig out just enough fortitude to be able to make it one more day. And he too marched across the parade deck wearing the Eagle, Globe and Anchor.

The rosary stayed with him also. And 20 years later it was his own son’s turn to face his personal limit. For the third time the rosary made it’s way to a young recruits hands in a Parris Island rifle range barracks. Accompanying it was a letter documenting the talismans history. And once again a young recruit dug deeper and made it one more day, until he too walked across the parade deck a United States Marine.

That rosary is now in a young Marines pocket in the deserts of Iraq. Waiting at home is an apprehensive young wife and a much younger baby girl whose days with her daddy are already outnumbered by her days away from him. Two young sisters whose entire world view is condensed to the fact that their Bubba is a Marine and he has to fight bad guys. A stepmother who covers her fear for his safety in the pride of being a Marine mom. And there is also a father, praying that the rosary that has already faithfully served two generations of Marines will provide the same solace and comfort to a third, and that the Blessed Mother will once again bring a Marine safely home to those who love him.

The Corps is built on traditions, both institutional and individual. May it remain so until there is no enemy, but only peace.

Gods Speed son.