My father served in the USMC during World War II. He was on the beach at Iwo and on Tarawa and served as part of the occupying forces in what remained of Hiroshima afterwards, until he was sent back to Hawaii to serve with JAG. (He was a practicing attorney when the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, but he enlisted in the USMC as a private and insisted on going through boot camp. They sent him to Officer Training immediately after, of course, but he felt he had the advantage of knowing what his men went through; consequently, he led from the front, not the back of the lines.)

He didn't speak about the war much, almost not at all until he was almost 80, a few years before he died. He just didn't want to relive it. War sickened him, and I suspect he lived through unmitigated hell while my brother was in Viet Nam.

But it never fails to revolt me when I hear sports icons and actors referred to as heroes. The men and women who served and sacrificed to preserve our freedoms were heroes. Someone who goes to a 5:00 a.m. practice session before school or work is not.

I have to agree with Spaw -- our children should be taught about that War. In fact, they ought to be taught about war, period: about courage, cowardice, sacrifice, brutality, victory, defeat -- the glory and the horror.

I believe it is true that those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. What kind of favor are we doing our children to let them grow up ignorant of the most momentous events of the 20th Century?

If the schools won't do it, we should.

Sarah