The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1944-03-23

There is a lot of talk to the effect
that our soldiers don't know what the
war is all about or why they're IN
there fighting it.
This seems like bunk.
If our soldiers don't know what the
war is about, then what on earth were
our schools doing when those soldiers
were StudentS-SOme of them not so
very long ago?
OF course, there are Il lot of dunder-
headed men and women posing as
school teachers and there are a lot OF
self-seekers who are on Boards of Edu-
cation.
But by and large our schools do
drill some things into the heads of the
precious precOciOuS or poodle sized
brains Of even the stupidest.
What applies to soldiers applies also
to civilians.
Is there any American, service man
or civilian, who doesn't know that we
were attacked at Pearl Harbor?
Is there any one of them who would
have said. lets forget it and give
our attackers anything they happen to
want?'
That's ONE thing this war is about.
We were attacked and we went out
hot-foot to meet and repel that attack.
Let's not forget that.
Why, in the light Of Pearl IIarbor,
should any one, soldier, sailor or stay
at-hOme, ask what the war is about?
1t is, for one simple thing, to see to
it that our nation isn't over-run and
conquered by invading brigands.
That being the basic fact it follows
that as between two sets of enemies,
there can be but one victor-and an
other thing the war is about is to see
that OUR SIDE WINS.
Having thus been forced into the
war, it became Il question whether
liberty under democratic government
could survive, or whether bondage un-
der dictatorship should over-run the
earth.
THAT conflict existed before the
war 1t began its existence when Mus
solin and Hitler founded their dicta-
torshipS and when Japan decided that
she must rule the Pacific and all that
bOrdered thereon.
For dictatorship must spread or
perish. The establishment of dictator
ship was the establishment of the
greatest of all time.
Armed attack forced the issue into
a state of war-or bloody fighting to
which could kill the most of the other
side at the least cost to itself.
1t comes down to very elementary
things.
Most great issues, though they may
have Il compleNity of detail can in the
main be stated simply as to their
broad lines.
Isn't it perhaps Il part of enemy
propaganda to make it appear that
many of us are so child-like that we
can't understand why we are fighting?
Hitler has said from the start that
we We're dopeS-soft in the head as
we'll as i'm the body.
We have proved to him that he
guessed wrong about being soft ply
Scally.
Why not prove that he was wrong
on the other count, as we'll?
Why do 50 many writer's and com
mentatorS give currency TO the idea
that we don't know what we are fight
ing for?
We probably know, averaging up all
Americans, to Il higher degree and
greater certainty, why we are fighting
and what for than does the average
German or Jap, or the average Nazi
satellite.
If we don't know why we are fight
ing, then why is it that our armed
forces have shown on every front that,
man for man, they are better fighters
than their opponents of whatever race?
Men ignorant Oftheir cause don't fight
well. That, after all, is just about the
acid test. We have out-prOduced and
out fought everything against which
we have been pitted. OF course, we
know WHAT FOR.-CMW.