Memorial Day, 2023

Today, I want to remember my mother's oldest brother, my Uncle Myles.

Uncle Myles fought in WWII in the South Pacific. He was one of the lucky ones. He came back.

He entered Michigan State College (later known as MSU) on the G.I. Bill.

That is when he "lost his shit".

Details are very sparse.

What I overheard as a young nipper is that shortly after entering college, he deduced that the United States had NOT won the war in the sense that the ideals of the NAZI party and Japanese fascist had taken root in the college/university.

He had chums who died or were wounded fighting against those evils. He had faced privation and mortal fear beating back the totalitarianism and elitism and intolerance.

And he came back to find those ideas coddled in state-funded institutions and being force-fed to students.

Myles took some time off. Once he had cooled off, he checked out some other institutions of higher learning. He liked Western Ontario in London, Ontario. The GI Bill was good with the arrangement and he continued his education.

I wish he was around so I could ask him how he knew so early. What did he see? What did he hear, exactly? Uncle Myles "losing his shit" was considered shameful at the time but in retrospect it was a canary in the coal mine.