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I would like to thank Rocky Mountain News writer James Meadow for penning such an articulate article about my father’s experience as a pilot in World War II (Maj. Fred Jeffers, “Their War,” Sept. 22). Also a big thanks to Steve Nickerson for his photographic efforts.
One thing I learned growing up, aware of the huge price that was paid for my freedom, the world at war during those times was fought in faraway places.
Many people thought it was none of our business to go “over there” and get involved in the war. Germany wasn’t any of our business. The Philippines weren’t any of our business, etc. Are Iraq and Afghanistan none of our business, too? I guess time will tell.
Either way, plus or minus, our freedom is better served when others are free as well. Our freedom is diminished when others are not free.

Tish Jeffers, Centennial

READER COMMENTS

Tish,-----Our freedom is better served when others are free as well. Ithink you are right in saying that. The only problem with achieving that goal is that there are some people who have no idea what freedom is about as they have been indoctrinated since childhood by restrictive religious law, as is the case in iraq. Islamic law, as taught by the radical Imam teachers, is full of hate and intolerance, which is the polar opposite of freedom.

The question is, if they were, of a sudden, given freedom, would not the various sects of that society see it as an opening to eliminate the opposition? This is just what happened in the Balkan States when the U.S.S.R lost it's iron grip on that area a few years ago. The result was genocidal war unimaginable atrocities and war crimes commited by the various factions within the populations of those countries.

Freedom is always hard won and is harder to hold on to, because zealots who seek power and control are always among us looking for a way to establish tyrannical, dictatorial rule and gain the power and control it results in.

Look how long it took us to overcome tyranny and finally came to these shores to exercise freedom and even then damned near lost it, If it were not for some truly extraordinary men. The greed for money pales in comparision to the ultimate addiction of power and control, And when there is a false belief system behind it, then it truly can be called evil.

So Allen I guess your answer is to let them continue to live under oppression, fear and intolerance?

Because it's just too hard of a battle, that takes years to achieve?

Or because someone else just as oppressive will come in and fill the void?

How generous and American of you to decide the freedoms YOU enjoy, which came as a result of your fore fathers - with the help of other nations, suffering and in many instances death, aren't "worth" other nations fighting for.

You're right the struggle for freedom is expensive, but I beg to differ, IT'S VERY MUCH WORTH IT!!!

Freedom is won by the people seeking freedom and is lost when it is handed to those people..Vietnam, Korea...all good examples of american lives wasted on good intentions but failed rational!

So how do you explain WWII?

US and Britain forces defeated the Germans. Sure there was "help" from resistance fighters, but those two countries bore the brunt of that war. Not too much different than the circumstances today.

At the time US involvement was also seen as "good" intentions but "failed" rational

We didn't cut and run then, and we shouldn't now!

Anonymous,

Your post is incorrect. Neither the US nor the UK bore the brunt of that war. The Soviet Union bore the brunt of World War II, loosing over a million soldiers, and devastating the German Armies Eastern Front. At least in the European Theater. Now, in the Pacific, the United States and Great Britain did indeed "win" that sector of the war, but to over-state the involvement of the the US and UK in the European Theater is very revisionist. That war was fought and won on the eastern front, by the Soviets, and their winter.

If you measure it based solely on casualties, yes Russia lost more soldiers. And to down play the US/UK involvement in the European theater is far more revisionist. Sounding rather "French" I might add.

I guess the Normandy invasion had nothing to do with the Liberation of Western Europe and the end of the war? Funny and I don't remember mention of a single Russian casualty there. But hey that minor skirmish doesn't count.

Russia only got involved when Hitler reneged on his pact to split Poland and the Baltic states and push on to Moscow.

2:26's post is far from revisionist...

04:32 If you can't accept the idea fact, and it has been proven by history to be just that, that thousands of years of teaching intolerance for any change in a social/ religious belief can't be changed in amy thing less than two generations, and only then if no intolerance teachings are allowed, you are delusional.

Why you justify the loss of thousands of American lives in an occupational war that has no chance to succeed and the loss of many more iraqi lives in the process is beyond me.

Our philosophy of freedom is alien to all nations in the mideast. Sure they will take our financial aide and sell us there oil, but that is no indication that they accept our conentions of freedom, justice and liberty.

Americans that believe any who don't automatically see the advantage of our democratic republic are some how evil must assume that their thought processes are the same as theirs. That, simply is not so nor will it ever be.

I have said this before and I'll say it again: You can conquer a country by force but you can't change the belief of the people in it by force.

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