PATRIOTISM<\/strong>
\nWord Count: 377<\/p>\n

The country was on the brink of financial disaster. They insinuated themselves into our lives and stole our livelihoods. They were well educated though many called it sly. It was out of patriotism and honor that we sought to save it. It was so long ago and I\u2019ve blocked it out of my mind for decades. Afraid that if I even thought about it not only would I have gone mad but I might give myself away. Even after all this time, I am still hunted and haunted.<\/p>\n

You cannot understand what it was like unless you too had lived through it. We heard only one side of the story. We felt threatened and they played on our fears. We could not get jobs enough to support us yet we could join the service and fired up, feel that we had some control left over our destinies.<\/p>\n

They were inhuman, like cattle. The horrendous conditions of the camps were real. We too, their captors, suffered the smells, the dirt, the sounds of constant and continual death. I understand now that anyone, in the extreme deprivations suffered, would be as repulsively benign, as stinking and skeletal and frightening as they themselves knew they must be.<\/p>\n

It all went too far, each day bringing new problems. Too many people. Death was the only way. We learned to make a game of it, just to be able to cope and accept what we were being ordered to do. And constantly, the reminders that they had brought it all upon themselves, these people who were nothing like us, barely human. It was the only way to stop what they\u2019d done to our country, to us. It\u2019s nothing new in history. It\u2019s nothing that ever goes away. It festers and grows even now someplace in the world. Instinct is the drive and human nature the response.<\/p>\n

I can look back on it all now and still, even in the overwhelming sense of disgust and horror, even in the shame and regret, there resides a small pride, an undying remnant of dedication to duty and the knowledge of a job well done. It was out of patriotism and honor that we sought to save it. We did it to save our country. Ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PATRIOTISM Word Count: 377 The country was on the brink of financial disaster. They insinuated themselves into our lives and stole our livelihoods. They were well educated though many called it sly. It was out of patriotism and honor that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-100-days-2011","category-psychological-realism","tag-psychological-realism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1029,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/1029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susangibb.net\/blog3\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}