Weekly Reflection #2

This week we learned about the Yalta Conference, FDR's death and read Hitlers Will. Then we talked about the bombing of Japan, mostly Nagasaki and the civilians between the targeted factories. We were assigned to comment on a paper whenever it was biased against dropping the bombs.

Weekly Reflection #1

This week we learned about D-Day, how the Normandy beaches were fortified and watched part of Saving Private Ryan when they landed on Omaha beach. We also watched some of another movie that showed an assault of a Japanese machine gun nest and an encampment. We were told to choose a name from the list on the website and write comments about what happened to them in the Pacific and send it to someone else to comment on it also. This assignment was easy for me because nobody sent me one to comment on. I liked watching the clips because it showed us somewhat what it was like for them fighting.

Tom Lyons

The Marines on Guadalcanal

TOM LYONS, 1st Parachute Battalion

Outnumbered and running out of ammunition, Edson's three hundred defenders faced their gravest threat when a large element of the Japanese III Battalion, 124th Infantry seemed poised to overrun the left side of the knoll. Edson ordered the Marine parachutists holding that side of the knoll to counterattack immediately. But the parachute battalion's commanding officer was nowhere to be found. He was relieved on the spot by Edson, and Captain Harry Torgerson was placed in command. Torgerson assembled two companies of parachutists and launched them in a desperate counterattack, saving the left flank of the line. After the Marines regained the line, the fighting became hand-to-hand, as parachutist Tom Lyons vividly remembers.

When they started raking us with a machine gun, that pissed me off, so I got up and crawled through the grass. The grass was about a foot and a half tall off the side of that hill, and I crawled up and around to the side of the machine gun. Bullets were flying everywhere, but the grass was high enough that it would partially hide you. I got almost to the machine gun before I was detected. They didn't see me until I stood up. There were so many people running around you couldn't shoot anybody. I stood up and threw a hand grenade, and just as I threw the grenade, they swung the gun around and ripped me up through the middle. I took several bullets; most of them went all the way through, and one missed my heart by about a half an inch. I would be in shock that I was still alive. -Michael Bryant 3/28/09 5:38 PM It knocked me ass over tin cup down the hill. The first one stung like hell. It really hurt. But the others after that didn't hurt at all. It seemed like I just left my body and was floating up in the air looking down at everything going on.

I saw a Jap come out, and he stepped on my stomach and he stabbed me in the throat with his bayonet. It went through the side of my neck and into the ground behind me but it didn't hurt. Jesse Youngdeer [Robert Youngdeer's brother] was coming up the trail with a box of hand grenades, and this Jap stepped off me and instead of finishing me off, he made a thrust at Youngdeer. [Youngdeer] stopped it with the box of hand grenades, and then he grabbed the Jap's rifle and was trying to wrestle it out of his hands. The Jap had stabbed him just above the knee. Another Marine ran up with his bayonet, and he tried to stab the Jap, and he got confused and stabbed Youngdeer right in the leg.

My eyes were wide open. I could see everything that was going on. I thought I was seeing it from fifty feet above. When they started firing the 105s [artillery] right in my area, I got some shrapnel in the right side of my chest. The bullets and shells were passing right over where I was floating around up there, and I was afraid they were going to hit me.

Morning came, and they came around, and all the Japs were gone. There were dead Japs all around me. They were picking out the Marines and throwing all the bodies on a truck, and they cut all our dog tags off. They hauled us down to the cemetery in the coconut grove, and they dumped our bodies out. I ended up at the top of the pile. The driver came around close to the tailgate and thought I was coming alive, so he started running into the jungle screaming, and he didn't come back. I would think this is kind of funny, but not happy that he didn't try to help me. -Michael Bryant 3/28/09 5:45 PM

An hour or so later, two corpsmen came by in a jeep, and they put me on a stretcher and hauled me to the hospital. They put me under a palm tree. From the stretcher, doctors told them to take this one out and bring in someone they can save. I would be angry because they didn't try to save me, and sad that I would probably die. -Michael Bryant 3/28/09 5:41 PM So I was there under a palm tree, and fresh troops started coming up the road. A ship came in with reinforcements, and an officer came over and said, "Take all the people out of the field hospital and put them on my ship and I'll take them back to Buttons [Base Buttons in Esp�ritu Santo]." And he said, "And that one under the palm tree, put him in my cabin and call the ship surgeon." He said, "You're going to be on the bridge all the way back to Buttons." I was conscious but couldn't talk. My mouth was full of caked blood. I was wearing the same clothes for almost two months.

This ship surgeon got my lung uncollapsed, and he pumped all the blood out of it and had me all cleaned up. After we made port, they put me on a plane to New Zealand. My mother got a check from my insurance saying I was dead the same day she got a letter from me written by a nurse at hospital in New Zealand. I bet she was surprised when she got those -Michael Bryant 3/28/09 5:53 PM

Book portfolio #3

I have read some of the book "The Good War" by Studs Terkel, which is about World War II. The book tells of many thousands of POWs and civilians dying by friendly fire, and of how the POWs were mistreated in the pacific. Also, how the Japanese-Americans were mistreated in America. War affects everyone, it affects those who die, family, friends, and whole families even if they have no direct association. WWII is the most infamous war in history I believe. Because it is the most discussed and many of us have relatives that fought in or were affected by it. This books theme is historical and personal perspectives because the war is over and is a part of the past, and it is personal because it is from the perspective of someone that was there that fought or saw the effect in the home front during that time.

War affects everyone, the War on Terror affects us every day whether we know it or not, it affects prices on everything from houses to toys to the kitchen sink. One of the people interviewed was going somewhere at night and there were crowds of people in the street that were throwing rocks at street lamps, screaming blackout, and smashing cars headlights because they were afraid of a Japanese bombing that didn't happen. Another interviewee was a young boy of 5 years at the time and was in California with his grandmother. While they were waiting for a trolley he was offered a piece of gum by a Japanese man about 55 years old, and his grandmother picked him up and ran 2 blocks and waited for another trolley. A Hawaiian that had helped clean up after Pearl harbor was interviewed and he said that a few weeks after the attack his girlfriend was killed by some sailors who were shooting 5-inch guns(have a ten-mile range) at Japanese planes. She was in her house getting ready for church, many people were hurt and killed in the city also. All of these people were affected by the war in some way and they weren't even fighting.

The affects of war are everywhere during WWII in America, Europe, the Pacific and the rest of the world. On the home front in America where women begin working in factories and children collect tin and rubber from wherever they find it. In Europe and the Pacific where civilians are basically forced from their homes because of the fighting. It affects all of the soldiers who fought, from all perspectives of life, it gave them all a different perspective on the world. War changes all that are affected by it. It changes how you think and how you act.

War changes everyone around it, in it, and not in or around it. It affected the whole world even generations after the war it has an influence on us. The theme affects us personaly because wars affect all of us personaly in some way even if it's just your opinion on it. Also, historicaly because is was about 60 years ago that it took place, and of course we learn about it in history class because it was a world wide event. This theme is important because it changes everyone even in the slightest way or in a very big way.

depression ?s

1. How does a person make money on an investment?


make people want to buy something for more than its worth to make it





2. What makes 'cheap credit' mean?


economy is doing well, people believe it getting better, the people don't think so anymore





3. What is 'buying on margin' mean?


10% of cost to buy stock, bad idea, don't have money





4. How is 'speculation' different from 'investment'?


speculation you dont care about the company you only want to buy and sell quickly, Investment you actually believe in the company and stick with it





5. How does 'panic selling' start?


everyone wants to sell and no one wants to buy





6. How can high unemployment start a negative economic cycle?


dont have a job so you dont buy stuff from companies and companies start making less products and fire people because the arent needed, cycle keeps happening, "dog chasing tail."





7. How did increases in technology contribute to overproduction in the 1920's?


technology took away jobs because it made jobs easier, made too many things that nobody could buy





8. What is meant by 'uneven distribution of wealth? Is it a bad thing?


dividing money unevenly to people, different classes lower, middle, higher.





9. What is a tariff, and why don't they seem to work in the modern economy (post-WWI)?


tax that is put on goods from other countries.





10. What is 'rugged individualism? Is it real?





11. What is a Hooverville, and why is it called that?

cities of homeless people on other peoples land, they blame President Hoover for being homeless and poor.

Jimmy Carter

Yellow: llamasong7: according to carter the problem with our country is not gas, inflation, or recession me: he says that the loss of confidence is the problem chemical.kay: a big problem :) 

I think that it is still a threat today because now that we have to rely upon other countries for everything we buy and buy it with, we have lost much confidence in America and ourselves.

Red:

He is saying that most Americans are giving up, being lazy and not caring. Instead of seeing people as who they are we only see other people for what they own.

Green:

Nixon (Watergate)

On June 1972, five men broke into the Watergate hotel and were arrested and the five were charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. Two other men were also arrested and all were indicted for conspiracy, burglary and violation of federal wiretapping. They were either directly or indirectly employed by President Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP or CREEP).