Today is Independence Day. Two hundred thirty-three years ago the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.
The secession from England would not be easy. It is estimated that 25,000 Americans lost their lives in the war and another number nearly equal to the first were wounded or disabled. That’s 2% of the estimated 2.5 million people who lived in the original thirteen colonies in 1776. In WWI 137,00 (.14%) US lives were lost and the number for WWII just shy of half a million (.37%). However, the total count for WWII was over 59 million. The Soviet Union alone lost 25.5 million people. Many believe this was the bloodiest war of all time.
The U.S. has been in eleven major “wars” since the Revolutionary war. That’s a war about every 20 years. I wonder if that much fighting was necessary. Since the Civil War ending in 1865, wars have been fought outside the continental U.S. although the Japanese did attack the U.S. on it’s own soil in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 1941, and then there was 9/11/2001. I wonder why war is so much easier to wage than it is to make peace.
For the next week I will be out of WiFi range. I'll keep writing every day but will need to make one big post probably Friday night. Then the same thing happens next Saturday as I'll be riding STP so I'll plan to post Sunday night.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The secession from England would not be easy. It is estimated that 25,000 Americans lost their lives in the war and another number nearly equal to the first were wounded or disabled. That’s 2% of the estimated 2.5 million people who lived in the original thirteen colonies in 1776. In WWI 137,00 (.14%) US lives were lost and the number for WWII just shy of half a million (.37%). However, the total count for WWII was over 59 million. The Soviet Union alone lost 25.5 million people. Many believe this was the bloodiest war of all time.
The U.S. has been in eleven major “wars” since the Revolutionary war. That’s a war about every 20 years. I wonder if that much fighting was necessary. Since the Civil War ending in 1865, wars have been fought outside the continental U.S. although the Japanese did attack the U.S. on it’s own soil in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 1941, and then there was 9/11/2001. I wonder why war is so much easier to wage than it is to make peace.
For the next week I will be out of WiFi range. I'll keep writing every day but will need to make one big post probably Friday night. Then the same thing happens next Saturday as I'll be riding STP so I'll plan to post Sunday night.
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