Monday, July 28, 2008

Today's Reading Assignment

Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe, highlighting a few things that were missing from Barack Obama's Berlin speech.

A few weeks back, we paid tribute to the men that Senator Obama forgot about. Apparently, he's never heard of William Tunner, Gail Halvorsen, or the other men who built the airbridge to Berlin, and kept it open for almost a year, despite severe logistical challenges, inclement weather, and harassment from the Soviets.

General Tunner died 25 years ago, but Colonel Halvorsen and scores of other airlift veterans are still around. Mr. Obama owes them an apology.

Not surprisingly, Germans know more about the airlift than an American senator who might be our next commander-in-chief. Colonel Halvorsen has appeared on German TV many times, often with the Berliners, who (as children) caught the candy dropped from his airplane, flying into the city. In 2002, the retired Air Force officer was selected to carry the German national team's placard into the stadium, at the start of the Winter Olympics.

4 comments:

James Skylar Gerrond said...

Spook, your first link is a misdirect...it goes to some former AF General that I've never heard of...:)

http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=5605

Lela said...

I agree....Senator Obama should apologize to those brave men who flew the Berlin Airlift. Without them, life in Central Europe would be much, much different today!

jay said...

Bush should apologise to the families of the 4000 dead soldiers in this pointless war before Obama apologizes for some stupid nitpicky criticism. Like McCain hasn't made any gaffes thus far.

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