I agree with that wholeheartedly, Al.

Regarding draconian cuts to the military...I still think it's a damned shame that not ONE of Great Britain's surviving WWII battleships was preserved as a national memorial after the war. They could at least have saved the Warspite, if nothing else. Or the Renown. Or one of the KGV's. Those ships were such cultural icons, so symbolic of British naval history, that it amazes me that they couldn't save one of them in honor of what they did.

The Japanese have saved one of theirs from the classic era of the pre-dreadnoughts: The Mikasa, Admiral Togo's flagship in the Russo-Japanese War. Thankfully, it did not get bombed and destroyed in WWII (It played no military part in that war, but the Allies might still have wrecked it merely out of spite. I'm glad they did not. Such historic vessels, once lost, are irreplaceable.)

The Americans, being financially prosperous after the war, had both the money and the pride to turn several of their capital ships into permanent memorials. Good for them. I wish the British could have managed to do the same.