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      08-14-2021, 11:53 AM   #95
MKSixer
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ///M Power-Belgium View Post
THIS !!!

Long story in short :
As you guys know , in summer I drive through the Belgian Ardennes .
But I always stop to visit the American Soldier Cemetery !
I think It was in 2009/2010 that I met 'there one of the last American survivors of the "Battle of the Bulge"
He said to me : Young man .You can call me John !
I said : Ok Sir. I'm honored to meet you John. May I ask you how old you are ?
He said : I'm feeling younger than I look like , and we both laughed out loud !
I think John was +/- 90 YO , but still in good shape !
I said : John you returned to Belgium to meet and to pray for your American friends ?
He said : Ohhhh NO ! After the war I returned very quickly to Belgium , because during the war I met the love of my life and I promised her to return and so he married the Belgian Marie-Louise and got 2 sons !

John said he lost all his American friends here ,more than 3 weeks they were surrounded in the forrest by the Germans and 3 weeks they were hit day and night by non-stop German airstrikes .
John was deaf , he lost his hearing by the German bombs that's why he was wearing hearing aid on both sides .
The next summer I returned to John's house in the Ardennes . But now the door was pulled open by someone else...
John passed away in his sleep ! But they showed me his grave and I put flowers on his grave .
I met John twice and we drank Belgian beers ,and John told me WWII stories that you guys never wouldn't believe !

I really miss John ! Respect , they died to protect our freedom ! May they all RIP !!!
GREAT POST Philippe!!

Part of a speech from Colin Powell in 2003 about American power and philosophy. One of the greatest speeches ever written:

The United States believes strongly in what you call soft power, the value of democracy, the value of the free economic system, the value of making sure that each citizen is free and free to pursue their own God-given ambitions and to use the talents that they were given by God. And that is what we say to the rest of the world. That is why we participated in establishing a community of democracy within the Western Hemisphere. It’s why we participate in all of these great international organizations.

There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power — and here I think you’re referring to military power — then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can’t deal with.

I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don’t think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world.


We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

I'm proud to be an American and I hope everyone here is proud to be a citizen of the country they are from. I just don't like it when people tear my country down.

Cheers MK
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