War Years

25 years ago (week of Jan. 17-23, 1971):A bill which would ban non-returnable beer and soft drink bottles was proposed to the County Council. The bill was proposed to encourage recycling and eliminate the waste disposal problems caused by throw-away bottles.50 years ago (week of Jan. 13-19, 1946):The Patuxent Grange held its first meeting of the year. Officers were elected. Improvement of county roads was selected as the Grange community project for 1946.The Howard County Draft Board reported that of the approximately 2,100 men drafted through their office during the war years about 1,100 had been returned to civilian life.

The 10th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq seems an appropriate time to look back at how it all happened and what it has wrought, not so much for Iraq as for the United States, which poured its own troops, treasure and world reputation into that colossal misadventure. American combat forces have finally been withdrawn, but with a continuing U.S. hand-holding of a propped-up and shaky regime in Baghdad. Saddam Hussein is dead, but outbursts of deadly violence continue as the war in Afghanistan, from which the Iraq invasion was a costly diversion, drags on. Was it worth it?

Sacrifices of today's elderly going in vainI feel very sad at what is happening to our country -- from the breakdown of law and order to the hypocrisy of our so-called "caring" society. Equally sad is that today very few of our current leaders -- politicians, churchmen, business moguls, etc. -- give a hoot about what older people think or want.Aren't we old folks the very people that this summer's World War II and Korean War parades were all about? . . .Our president has no memory of those war years except as a protester.

Jack Hook, longtime secretary-treasurer of Local 40-543 of the American Federation of Musicians, trombonist and connoisseur collector of old-time radio shows, sent me a tape the other day of singer Kate Smith's performance on WCAO radio in Baltimore during World War II. "I bought the tape some years ago of wartime radio broadcasts from Radio Yesteryear, and nowhere on the liner notes does it mention Kate Smith singing in Baltimore," Hook said the other...

WASHINGTON -- As allied troop strength in the Persian Gulf passed the 700,000 mark yesterday, U.S. officials reported their largest "kill" of Iraqi armor of the war.Marine AV-8B Harrier attack jets surprised an Iraqi armored column crossing the Kuwaiti desert late Monday, destroying 24 tanks, armored personnel carriers and supply vehicles, combat correspondents reported."

Besotted as we are by the daily reports of bloody, heart-rending conflicts in Bosnia, Haiti, Rwanda, we need to be reminded of the true state of affairs: that there are substantially fewer conflicts than there were in the Cold War years.In 1993 major armed conflicts resulting in over a thousand battle- related deaths were recorded in 13 countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Georgia, India, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Turkey.

For years I listened to my mother talk of World War II with great fondness, but had trouble understanding why she seemed to treasure those years. In my mind, she was romanticizing a time defined by the Holocaust.After seeing singer Andrea Marcovicci at Center Stage, where she performed her show ''Love Songs From World War II,'' I think I have a better idea of why my mother recalls the war years with such longing.She was in her late teens in Glasgow, Scotland, volunteering with her girlfriends as a hostess at the American Red Cross off-duty center, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and serving Coke to homesick American soldiers.

Amazingly, only a few decades ago the jury was still out on Picasso, with some critics, journalists and historians still expressing skepticism over whether the modernist revolution he helped usher in would truly prove a lasting contribution to the world's cultural heritage. Today there seems absolutely no doubt about the magnitude or permanence of Picasso's achievement. Picasso is universally acknowledged as one of the great figures in the history of European art. As a result, these days any exhibition of the master's work is a significant event, and the modestly scaled show Pablo Picasso: Surrealism and the War Years 1926-1946, now on view in the Cone Focus Gallery at the Baltimore Museum of Art, is no exception.

25 years ago Unknown burglars broke into the J. C. Penney department store over the weekend, ransacked the offices and stole a $1.59 flashlight from a basement work table, Westminster city police reported. -- Democratic Advocate, Dec. 30, 1971.50 years ago The annual beautiful doorway contest at Westminster, omitted during the war years since 1941, was resumed this season. Following a viewing by the judges Saturday afternoon and evening, announcement of the winners was made. The event is sponsored by the Westminster Chamber of Commerce.

Peter Cinquegrani, president and owner of the Burch Co., manufacturers of aluminum doors, awnings and storm windows, died of an aneurysm July 1 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Ruxton resident was 85. Mr. Cinquegrani was born in Baltimore and raised in Little Italy, the son of immigrants from Sicily. He cut short his education to help support his family. After studying welding, he went to work during World War II at the Glenn L. Martin Co. aircraft plant in Middle River. Later in the war years, he was a welder at aircraft manufacturing plants in Fort Worth, Texas, and San Diego.

From testimony of Jason Hurd of the Army's 278th Regimental Combat Team: One day, Iraqi police got into an exchange of gunfire with some unknown individuals ... [and] some of the stray rounds ... hit the shield of one of our Hummers. The gunner atop that Hummer decided to open fire with his 50-caliber machine gun into that building. We fired indiscriminately and unnecessarily at this building. We never got a body count, we never got a casualty count afterward. ... Things like that happen every day in Iraq.

Yesterday, Ash Wednesday in the Christian world, I sat in an old, comforting church in Bolton Hill and heard peace-loving clergy - Catholic, Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, United Church of Christ - speak eloquently against George Bush and his war in Iraq. I would say some of them spoke angrily, too, even if they do not like that characterization, because that's what I heard. That's what it sounded like. It sounded like righteous men and women turning over the tables in the temple.

Amazingly, only a few decades ago the jury was still out on Picasso, with some critics, journalists and historians still expressing skepticism over whether the modernist revolution he helped usher in would truly prove a lasting contribution to the world's cultural heritage. Today there seems absolutely no doubt about the magnitude or permanence of Picasso's achievement. Picasso is universally acknowledged as one of the great figures in the history of European art. As a result, these days any exhibition of the master's work is a significant event, and the modestly scaled show Pablo Picasso: Surrealism and the War Years 1926-1946, now on view in the Cone Focus Gallery at the Baltimore Museum of Art, is no exception.

Peter Cinquegrani, president and owner of the Burch Co., manufacturers of aluminum doors, awnings and storm windows, died of an aneurysm July 1 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Ruxton resident was 85. Mr. Cinquegrani was born in Baltimore and raised in Little Italy, the son of immigrants from Sicily. He cut short his education to help support his family. After studying welding, he went to work during World War II at the Glenn L. Martin Co. aircraft plant in Middle River. Later in the war years, he was a welder at aircraft manufacturing plants in Fort Worth, Texas, and San Diego.

Frederick F. Reese was born in Baltimore in 1854, the son of a prosperous owner of a fertilizer business. In those pre-Civil War years, the national debate over slavery and states' rights raged, and Maryland was not immune from those tensions. The winds of war were fanned by "Bloody Kansas," the Dred-Scott case of 1857, and John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry in 1859. "In Baltimore schisms ran deep. As war approached, tensions mounted between factions that held allegiance to the North and the South.

GOOD THING the Polytechnic Institute Class of 1942 meets monthly. Any more often, says Jim Fisher, organizer of the reunions, "and these guys might actually remember that they tell the same stories over and over." They meet in American Legion and Knights of Columbus halls around town. Those who can still imbibe have a beer or a glass of wine. Then comes lunch and those stories - of World War II, their days as students at North and Calvert and, of course, the legendary Poly principal of 38 years, Wilmer A. Dehuff.

"Flying Start: A Fighter Pilot's War Years," by Hugh Dundas, 180 pages, St. Martin's Press, New York, N.Y., $16.95."Flying Start," Hugh Dundas' account of his war years as a fighter pilot, starts off about as fast as a flight of Spitfires scrambling to meet the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain, the World War II air war that was reaching its climax exactly 50 years ago this week.Hugh Dundas was one of the few to whom Winston Churchill said so much was owed.As the book opens, Dundas is in his Spitfire over Dunkirk suddenly staring at the bright yellow nose of a Messerschmidt 109.Britain is evacuating its armies from Europe in ignominious defeat.

London. -- If the Orangemen's marches in Belfast undo the Northern Ireland peace initiative and the U.N. peacekeepers are forced to withdraw from Bosnia's Muslim enclaves, it will be more proof to a growing band of pessimists that humankind, having scraped by thus far, is finally heading for disaster. Even those who look alike, live alike and, in their private lives, love alike, can't resolve their differences peacefully.The contrary view is taken by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which finds ''efforts to resolve some of the world's most intractable conflicts [coming]

ONE IS THE loneliest number, especially when it's a high visibility congressional vote against a measure practically the whole nation supports - as was the case Sept. 14, when the House of Representatives voted 420 to 1 to give the president power to retaliate against the terrorist attacks on America. California Democrat Barbara Lee defended her lonely stand by saying that authorizing military force to stop terrorism wouldn't work, and "I felt let's not do anything that could escalate this madness out of control."

"The Kid in Upper 4" is still one of the most compelling World War II-era images. It ranks at the top with those that asked, "Is This Trip Necessary?" which later became a celebrated wartime quip of battlefield-bound troops. "Zip Your Lip. Save A Ship," "V for Victory," "Rosie the Riveter," "Guard the Supply Lines. Railroad Men. Alert! Head Clear. Eyes Open. Mouth Shut," "Buy War Bonds," or the image of a sinking ship with the caption, "Someone Talked," are other wartime classics. On the home front, they helped define and shape a national patriotic purpose and the morale that was needed to defeat the Axis powers and win the war. In the early war years, the Office of War Information in Washington was headed by noted poet Archibald MacLeish.