CONCLUSION

Council on Aging & Human Services again salutes those of you who laid your lives on the line for the rest of us;  those of you who supported our warriors in supply, service,  and maintenance lines;  those of you who kept the home front a vibrant and active part of the war effort;  and we salute the students who wrote this piece of history. 

We hope all who read this book learned a valuable lesson about the people and times here in Whitman County in the days when war raged upon the earth.  We trust you gained some understanding about how World War II was lived out in the lives of those who were engaged in it day by day some sixty years ago.  As it turns out, that was everyone in Whitman County. 

 In the final analysis, World War II was not about dates and battles.  It was about people.  People who were willing to stop what they were doing and go to war.  For the most part that meant young people just out of high school, maybe in college, starting new careers, thinking about starting a family.  They truly did lay down the life they had intended to pursue in order to defend freedom and the lives of their families and friends.

 In reality, the whole world was in peril of falling under the domination of powerful dictators.  As you read through the stories in TRIBUTE  it should have become abundantly clear that there was not a place on earth that was untouched by the war.  It truly was a World War, one we had to win.  The price was tremendous, frightfully and absolutely tremendous.

 If we think in terms of numbers, then World War II becomes a distant battle where materials were spent and  bodies were counted, buried, and forgotten.  When we think in terms of the Dorman boys from LaCrosse, Bud Smick from Endicott, the Gordon boy from Pine City, Gelhaus and Goldsworthy from Rosalia, Hutchens and the Scholz boy from Colfax, Bob West from Palouse, Ohnemus and Hemphill from Pullman, and all the other  family names that appear in this book, the picture changes.  When we think of real people who saw friends in airplanes fall out of the sky before their eyes, people who saw friends drop dead to the ground by their side, people who pulled the burning bodies of friends out of the water next to sinking ships, then the war truly comes close to home. 

 We don't want to forget those still living among us in Whitman County, those who came home and have now passed on,  nor those who did not return but lie beneath a cross in a faraway land.  They all showed love greater than anyone, in that they laid down their lives for their friends.

 One last footnote: I asked Lester Bishop to read the material we put together on Company E.  He performed above and beyond the call of duty, improving the piece considerably,  for which I do thank him. 

He also added a note to me which I share here with you.

Diane: Just a final word.  This thought seems to be a universal feeling among most of the guys with whom I associate.  It was the people with whom you associated and not the activities that made the whole experience acceptable.  One would not willingly do the exercise over again.  It was the people and the friendships formed that made all of it acceptable.  L. Bishop