Seven Degrees of Separation

Oh, I wouldn't be disappointed that the adage that between ever person in this world today, there are only "Six Degrees of Separation" between any of us and, say, Kevin Bacon.

What disappoints me is that I seem to have discovered a connection between myself that most egregious scoundrel, Michael Moore, who claims to have a personal grevience against snipers because his "uncle was killed by a sniper in WWII".

And so was mine.



He was my mother's favorite brother, the youngest in the family, and a Sergeant in the Infantry.  Because of timing, I had assumed that the was killed during the Massacre at Malmedy, but it turns out that he was killed by a sniper while crossing a barnyard in Germany ... miles away from the 'heavy action' of that period.

I never knew him, of course; I was born on the day that the American Flag was raised on Iwo Jima.  Perhaps my birth gave my mother some reason to endure her grief.  I don't know.  I asked ONCE for my mother to tell me about my uncle, but she broke into tears and hid in another room until she could control her grief.  I was forty years old at the time, and she still found her loss unbearable.

After my mother died, I came into posession of some papers of my uncle, including a personal letter from a member of his hunit.  This man had been with my uncle since Basic training, and considered himself a close friend.  I think he grieved as much as my mother had, but he had seen men killed in combat had ... well, his grief was spread among many men; hers was always concentrated on her beloved younger brother.

So yes, I can understand how someone whose sibling died in combat could allow her grief to overwhelm her for years ... decades.

But what I cannot understand is how someone who never knew his relative personally can use the death of a family to further his personal political agenda.

Fortunately, I have never had any respect for Michael Moore.  Which is A Good Thing, because it would be disrespectful of his hero uncle for me to denigrate that heroic sacrifice just because I think his nephew is a despicable person.

I respect the uncle ... which makes a total of ONE member of the Moore family.

Funny;  I had never thought it possible for my opinion of Michael More to be any lower than it was before.  It only proves, I guess, how wrong we can be when we opine:  "He couldn't sink any further into depravity".


NOTE:  I've filed this post under the paired labels "War and Rememberance" and Useful Idiots.

The first label is for the Uncle, who gave 'the last full measure of devotion'.

The second?

Sheeee-itt!