Mike Sadler vs the bully boys

 

What has happened to this spoiled generation? But I won't just single out Britain because this weird world of young (and old) humanity appears to be everywhere. 

I was so moved by this story (above) about Mike Sadler and his actions as a clever soldier during WW2. I invite the reader to google him to find out more. It's a remarkable story of bravery and heroism at a time in history when there was already a surplus of these traits overflowing the British borders. 

Was it not because they rose to the challenge of fighting off a crazed German nation, that their lives depended upon it? Boys became men overnight, and the British people became united after a decade of political squabbling. It was, as they say, an existential threat, and they took it on with that stoic British sense of pride. Americans too, faced this threat, and they too lost many young men and young gals, but from the safety of their geographical position. My uncle died flying raids to Germany in a B17. He was barely out of school. Europe, as a whole also lost an entire young generation.

So why are we so different today? Have we all lost our moral compasses? Has our sense of decency been deformed by too much information over the internet?  I don't have the answer. But these two fellows (below), who are the grandchildren of what we have always called 'The Great Generation' of the post WW2 era are certainly poster boys for this weird contemporary world.

"Things change", as the philosophers say, it's the way of Nature, of life, and the world. But how sad it must be for British families who had lost so many sons and daughters during WW2 to have to face Newspaper Headlines depicting these ignoble mugs.

But indeed, there are times for glory and there times for cowardice. We seem to be living in the latter, yet in spite of that, there are unsung angels working everyone around us, hiding in plain sight, as it were, from hospitals to hospices, relief agencies to middle schools, so let us not forget these heroic angels when we come across a pair of unworthy bully boys.