Katrina, General Patton, and Individual Responsibility
How can you resist that title? I took this from Stephen Ambrose's wonderful Citizen Soldiers:
Patton entered the town [of Bitburg, Germany] from the south while the fighting was still going on at the northern edge of town. "In spite of the fact that the shells were falling with considerable regularity, I saw five Germans, three women and two men, re-roofing a house. They were not even waiting for Lend-Lease, as would be the case in several other countries I could mention [including France]." Dozens of GIs make the same point: in Italy and France, the residents left the rubble in the streets, waiting for someone else to clean it up, while in Germany the residents were cleaning up as soon as the battle passed their villages.
Does this make anyone else think of Katrina and New Orleans? I guess they don't call it the French Quarter for nothing.
