1 Dude -- you might want to check the batteries in that calculator. Its should have come up with 62 years, not 52. Or is the problem "operator error"? Regardless, it is fantastic to have these men home again. May God bless them and their families.

2 Good deal.

3 They remain forever young.

4 I wonder if there were any leftards there to protest against our unjust war against Hitler?

5 Actually, it was the right that opposed the war against Hitler. Don't you read history? The left wanted to take on fascism as early as 1935. It's why Hemingway went to spain to fight with the leftists against Franco's fascists, allied with Hitler. It's why FDR's big opponent in the rearmament battle of 38-41 was the right wing, led by racists like Lindbergh and isolationists of all stripes (including the pacifist left, but they were the smaller part). Try again, IM, try again. (There were even some on the right who, after Pearl Harbor, advocating only going after the Japanese, and leaving the Jews and Hitler's other victims to burn. Please get me right--I am NOT using that historical position by a minority of the Right to characterize today's conservatives. I'm saying you couldn't be more pathetic and ignorant in your attempt to compare WWII and Iraq. The "left" was far stronger in the fight against fascism than the right was, in part because many on the right had sympathized with Franco, and yes, with Hitler (and in fairness, many on the left with Stalin)

6 Finally JD provides us with the anicdote to all the ultra right crap spewing over this site. I await the "educated" response from Inprobulus Maximus after he picked up a history book. Thank God our founding fathers were not so close minded, otherwise we would would be in a world of . . . .

7 Yes JD, I read history, and pathetic and ignorant are words that you shouldn't throw around lightly, as you have no idea how ill equipped you are to tangle with me. I know more about history than you know the inside of your house, I'll warrant, and if I feel like it, I can bury you in facts without even referencing any material. You use the term "Right" to describe anyone who isn't a piece of shit Communist, which I guess is true, but hardly accurate to describe who "we" are today, and who "they" were yesterday. The terms Right and Left originated in France, based on where the Statists and the Populists sat, and like everything else they produce, is generally useless except in a superficial sort of way. Fascists and Communists are blood brothers because both creeds are Statist in nature, and both seek to crush freedom. With rare exception, it has always been the respect for individual liberty that has motivated the people of this nation, and to try to paint it otherwise is dishonest. But then, I expect nothing else from the likes of you. The leftards also opposed our stance against Hitler, right up until he invaded Russia, then it was okay, though that didn't stop them from trying to pass military and industrial secrets to the Communists, who were also our sworn enemies, but who were less immediate a threat than the Nazi's. It was an American Communist, Ted Hall, who passed our nuclear secrets to the Russians, thus setting the stage for the Cold War and the nuclear proliferation nightmare we have today. Your party has much for which to answer, so watch where you point your fingers. Regarding Hemingway, his decision to fight in the Spanish war was based purely upon his opposition to Fascism, though your kind would like to paint him as a good Communist. Hemingway was a populist at heart, because he liked people, but he opposed Statism of any kind, even that of FDR's Great Society. To try to use him, a good example of the American spirit, to bolster your love of Communism, is the very definition of pathetic and ignorant. Leftards today are either misinformed idiots or bald-faced liars, and they oppose everything that makes this country great, and are trying to destroy it at every turn, as they have been for a hundred years now, but you and your Tvarischi will fail, because liberty will always live in the hearts of enough people to remain when your idiotic Socialism is a thing of the past.

8 Wow, I guess being being objective and open minded really pisses people off. Funny how this liberal worked in Iraq for the State Department. I must have been secretly trying to conspire with the terrorists to attack the Us forces stationed there. Improbulus, ever go Iraq? I pray to God you don't have to.

9 Yes, I did go to Iraq in 1990, and not as some government parasite, but as a soldier, which is something you don't have the balls to be. I wish to God that I could go again, but they can't use me with all my injuries that I received in the service of my country, though I'd be glad to go with my bad back, torn ligaments, and all. Don't start crowing about what you've done, because you haven't done shit.

10 IM--you know as little about Hem, as you do about world history. Read any one of several bios of Hem to figure out some of his politics. The Kenneth Lynn was is the best, IMHO. He was a committed leftist at one time, and his anger at Dos Passos and others who moved right was real. He and his eventual third wife Martha Gellhorne fought in Spain as leftists. Having seen Batista in action in Cuba, he was also pretty ambivalent about Castro. (I don't think he was ever very sophisticated politically, but like many great writers, he assumed that brilliance in one area was transferable universally) You are correct that the Communist Party in this country briefly endorsed the Molotov-Ribbentrop peace of 39-41--but that in no way makes untrue what I said about the left and right in the 30s and their attitudes towards fascism. In fact, the Comintern's aboutface on Hitler led to massive upheavals in the far left in this country, as many finally saw that Moscow was controlling the Comm. Party USA. Most on the left remained opposed to Hitler, regardless of cynical orders from Moscow. Even rightwing histories of the American left cover this; it is not in dispute. It was one of the things that led to neo-conservatism among Jewish intellectuals---how could the communist party preach alliance with the anti-semitic Hitler? As for my use of right: I don't think it applies to everyone who isn't a communist. It is a vague term, but since you throw around "left" and of course the lovely neologism "leftard", I'm rather surprised at your hypocrisy in objecting to the term "right". Are you saying that Lindbergh and the Liberty League were not "right"? Conservatism as you articulate it briefly above sounds far more like "libertarianism" a related but distinct ideology.

11 JD, you're obviously well-versed in propaganda, so why don't you just admit that you're a Communist? You see the world as two camps; Yours, and everyone else's, with America as the prime enemy. Do you think you're the first to come here trying to sell that shit? The way you phrase everything as Fascim vs. Communism tells us at once what you are and where your loyalties lie. Just move to France, Cuba, or North Korea or anywhere else, but please get the hell out of America; we don't need you.