Folks,

Dux:

As you know, I grew up in the late 40s and 50's. I was born in 1944 near the end of the war and spared the knowledge of even the relatively minor privations and miseries of the war felt in our southern community. As a kid, my group of young lads was absolutely fascinated with everything about WW2. We were perhaps inordinately interested in anything pertaining to Hitler and The Third Reich. Oddly enough, in spite of the infatuation, when we played out our mock battles, as young lads always do, we always were Americans against the Germans. Never once the other way 'round.

I struggled through Mein Kampf before I was a teenager. It was Hitler's view of the politics of the world. Reading it clearly shows what he had in mind for the future. Thinking back now it is easy to see how this charismatic man took over the minds and hearts of a suffering Germany that was festering under the unimaginable yoke of the treaty or Versailles.

Back then I was mostly fascinated with the great power and the sporty uniforms. Very soon of course I began to learn about all the terrible things that happened under the Third Reich and the terrible misuse of that seductive power became overwhelmingly apparent to me. I began to see what WW2 was really all about and why it had to be fought.

The world and even the German people, who probably suffered the most as a result of the NAZI mania, all seem to lay the war entirely at Hitler's feet of clay, as if he had hoodwinked or hypnotized or threatened a whole nation into compiliant zombies or frightened rabbits. In truth, anyone who snapped a crisp Heil Hitler or turned away from the responsibility of a civilized nation to cleanse its own self of such a terrible cancer before it wrecked havoc upon the body politic and spread beyond its borders to sicken the whole world, must also bear the burden of responsibility for the NAZI atrocities.

It could be that the greatest tragedy of the disease of Nazism is that it remains in pockets throughout the world of today waiting for every opportunity to re-infect posterity. There is an obvious struggle to re-write history by the Neo-NAZIS and others with their own agenda. Those that lived through the war are slipping away and it is up to our generation not only to remember the truth but to preach it at every opportunity to our own children and to anyone else who will listen.

IMHO we owe it to all those who sacrificed so much for our own freedom. We can do no less and fortunately for us, it is the information age and there is far too much on film, in books written by eye witnesses, newspapers and other incontrovertible proofs available to those who wish to seek the truth for this abomination to succeed, even on the Internet.

Our water colorist pal C51 writes that he managed to recreate the sap green and the Antwerp blue of the lake but stopped there and did not finish. Too bad, I was looking forward to seeing it.

My, have you noticed how fast these pages are turning these days...