The Black-Outs and a British Woman I Know

My mother used to talk about living with the black-outs during the war, and she would talk about how ominous it felt to have those.

A British woman I know talked about being a young girl in England during the war, and she talked about how frightening it was to be there. I don't know why, but when she made a very moving remark about America it just kind of gave me chills. She was talking about being afraid in England, and then she suddenly said, "Until your wonderful country (the US) came....".

I guess I grew up in a time where there's a lot of people in the world who don't think much of the US, and this woman was one of the few people (at the time) that I had met who made such a nice remark about the US. She said she would never forget how happy they "her family and others, I guess" were to have the US show up. She said, "I just love your country."

Maybe, too, because I had grown up with a World War II Vet father and had always kind of thought of the US soldiers more than I had really considered young girls in England. (I was young. Kids don't think as broadly as more mature people do.)

In any case, Irene's remark was a small thing that I somehow have always remembered. Maybe I needed to have it confirmed that, for all that they lost, US solders were, in fact, appreciated.