The Big Picture –
By Glynn Wilson –

CATOCTIN MOUNTAINS, Md. – It’s Labor Day weekend, not Memorial Day or Veterans Day, I know.

It would be great if the unions could help us save democracy in November. But I’ve spent enough time working with unions to know the rank and file are largely with Trump.

It’s also clear that many cops and members of the military are also with the loud mouth dictator wannabe, even though he’s just playing them as “losers and suckers” and did nothing for them while he had the power in the Oval Office.

Now he’s playing politics with the war dead in the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, our nation’s most sacred shrine to those who died fighting for democracy and freedom.

Trump And Staff Use War Dead for Political Purposes, Clashing With Officials at Arlington National Cemetery

So I wonder if perhaps at least some union members and veterans might help us save American democracy one more time in November. Many members of the Capitol Police and Metro Police in Washington did their part on Jan. 6, 2021, during the attack on the Capitol, even though some were on Trump’s side and assisted the insurrectionists that day.

Family History

It’s been a few years since I looked into my own family history and discovered some of the contributions by relatives who came before me and gave the ultimate sacrifice. But I was recently contacted by a cousin in Marietta, Georgia who has been looking into one side of our family I had tried to research but ran into dead ends a few years ago.

Marine Cpl. Robert Curtis Wilson, 24, died near the end of World War II on June 14, 1945, fighting the Japanese empire on the island of Okinawa: NAJ screen shot

I knew that my dad’s older brother, Marine Cpl. Robert Curtis Wilson, 24, had died near the end of World War II on June 14, 1945, fighting the Japanese empire on the island of Okinawa. It was there the Allied Command had planned to gather forces and use the air field on the island to launch a final assault on the mainland of Japan before we dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki n August 6 and 9, which ultimately led the Japanese to surrender and saved countless lives.

The gravestone says he fell while fighting for liberty. We cannot allow this ultimate sacrifice to be in vain.

The grave stone of Marine Cpl. Robert Curtis Wilson, 24, who died near the end of World War II on June 14, 1945, fighting the Japanese empire on the island of Okinawa: NAJ screen shot

My dad, Eschol Wilson, also a Corporal in the U.S. Army, was stationed in El Paso, Texas and was on the bus headed to take him to an airport to join the forces overseas when the news of his brother’s death reached the family in St. Clair County, Alabama. Since he was the last son to carry on the family name, he was spared the trip overseas and never had to face the horror of that war.

U.S. Army Cpl. Eschol Wilson: NAJ screen shot

I knew that I may not exist today if this had not happened the way it did, as sad as that sounds.

But a cousin recently contacted me who had gathered much history on the Love family. My paternal grandmother was Edith Pauline Love Wilson, the sister of Edward Lafayette Love, grandfather to John Sansom of Marietta, Georgia. He informed me that our Uncle Pfc. Ross Love also died on Okinawa on April 20, 1945, which must have been during the first assault on Skyline Ridge just 20 days into the campaign.

He was awarded a Purple Heart for his wounds and a Bronze Star for bravery in that battle. My cousin found a copy of the certificate, which describes his actions that day.

This renewed my interested, so I looked up and watched “The Pacific,” an American war drama miniseries produced by Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman for HBO, Playtone and DreamWorks that premiered on March 14, 2010. It focuses on the U.S. Marine Corps’s actions in the Pacific Theater of Operations within the wider Pacific War.

Then I watched the companion piece “Band of Brothers,” released in 2001, which follows the men of Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Division of the Army, through the European Theater.

The Pacific centers on the experiences of three Marines, Robert Leckie, Eugene Sledge and John Basilone, who were in different regiments (1st, 5th, and 7th, respectively) of the 1st Marine Division.

My Uncle Curtis was also in the First Marine Division, the first to arrive and lead the charge on Skyline Ridge in the Battle of Okinawa, the single longest sustained carrier campaign of the Second World War.

The Pacific miniseries features the 1st Marine Division’s battles in the Pacific on Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu and Okinawa, as well as Basilone’s involvement in the Battle of Iwo Jima. It is based primarily on the memoirs of two Marines: With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leckie. It also draws on Sledge’s memoir China Marine and Red Blood, Black Sand, the memoir of Chuck Tatum, a Marine who fought alongside Basilone at Iwo Jima.

There is a scene in Episode 9, the climactic battle of Okinawa, in which survivors of the First Marines are marching out of battle and being replaced by reinforcements. It will make you cry.

Codenamed Operation Iceberg, it was a major battle of the Pacific War by Army and Marine Corps against the Imperial Japanese Army. The initial invasion of Okinawa on April 1, 1945 was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific Theater of World War II. The 82-day battle lasted from April 1 until June 22, 1945. After the long campaign of island hopping, the Allies were planning to use Kadena Air Base on Okinawa as a base for Operation Downfall, the planned invasion of the Japanese home islands, 340 miles or 550 kilometers away.

The U.S. had created the Tenth Army, a cross-branch force consisting of the Army 7th, 27th, 77th and 96th Infantry Divisions with the 1st, 2nd, and 6th Marine Divisions, to fight on the island. It was unique in that it had its own Tactical Air Force (joint Army-Marine command) and was supported by combined naval and amphibious forces. Opposing the Allied forces on the ground was the Japanese Thirty-Second Army.

The battle has been referred to as the “typhoon of steel” in English, known in Japanese as “tetsu no bōfū”. The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of Japanese kamikaze attacks and the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle was the bloodiest and fiercest of the Pacific War, with some 50,000 Allied and around 100,000 Japanese casualties, along with  about 474  local Okinawans conscripted into the Japanese Army. According to local authorities, at least 149,425 Okinawan people were killed, died by coerced suicide or went missing.

In the naval operations surrounding the battle, both sides lost considerable numbers of ships and aircraft, including the Japanese battleship Yamato. After the battle, Okinawa provided the victorious Allies a fleet anchorage, troop staging areas, and airfields in proximity to Japan as they planned to invade the Japanese home islands.

In Episode 9 of the “Band of Brothers,” also the climax of the series, Easy Company happens on a concentration camp of Jews and Gypsies, many dead but also many starving survivors. It is the saddest thing I think I’ve ever seen.

Election 2024

So it is hard for me to imagine anyone who has watched these shows, or who know anything of the history of World War II, who could ever support anyone who would set out to create a fascist dictatorship here in the United States. But that is what is happening with the Trump campaign for president and this Project 2025.

So far according to the polls this election is still too close to call. How is that possible?

As everyone knows, the people of Georgia basically saved all our butts in 2020, delivering that state for President Joe Biden along with two U.S. Senators. But now the MAGA Republicans are toying with the election machinery in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, trying to deliver us a dictator on Nov. 5, 2024.

We ran a story about this from ProPublica this week.

Election Deniers Secretly Pushed Rule That Would Make It Easier to Delay Certification of Georgia’s Election Results

The New York Times has now taken on that story as well.

In Georgia, Local Officials Express Frustration Over New Election Rules

I’m considering making the trip down there myself in October – if we can raise the resources to travel there and find a place to camp to get the dateline in Fulton County. It’s not a done deal yet. But I have a chance to visit some relatives and flesh this story out more before the election. It may or may not make a difference. But it is a story to tell.

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