by Vince Coyner
American Thinker
I grew up in the shadow of World War II. It had been over for almost 30 years by the time I started school. Nonetheless, WWII was probably the most talked about subject in my history classes throughout. But the funny thing is, as close as it was, it seemed like it was ancient history. It was finished. The evil Nazis were vanquished, and the world had moved on. America and her allies had won, and there were new enemies to slay.
While too young to understand Vietnam when it was raging, by high school, I had a better grasp of world events, plus we were living on Guantanamo Bay, down in Cuba. Although today it’s more well known for its prison facilities, at the time, it was a U.S. Navy training/support station, and the enemy was the Soviets and Fidel Castro.
In the late 1980s, after college, I was stationed with the Army in West Germany. Our biggest alerts were usually related to the East Germans, who killed an American officer while I was there. I don’t remember all the details, but the Americans said he was on an approved inspection mission, and the East Germans said he was spying.