Harry Truman and the American DNA

We are mobilized for war. This time is a once in a lifetime experience for nearly all Americans, and it will show our enterprising make do solutions to problems, unity of spirit, the mustering of resources and persons, barn raising and food bank community moves and our customary massive but inefficient initial federal reaction.

We shall overcome, and we shall and should be proud. It’s all built into the American DNA being demonstrated for us. There will inevitably be fraud, cheaters and war profiteers. We shouldn’t have to keep relearning lessons on preventing and punishing fraud and war profiteering.

We need to call up the American DNA in the spirit of former President Harry S. Truman. He was a senator in World War II, whose attempt to reenlist at age 56 was rejected by Gen. George C. Marshall, where he relentlessly chased down excessive profits charged against federal procurements. He led efforts to collect excess profits through taxation.

Truman exemplifies American DNA. He joined the Missouri National Guard in 1905 and was activated when the U.S. entered World War I. He served in field artillery where he had to first study mathematics in order to learn how to calculate firing orders, was sent to France in 1917 and participated in several brutal campaigns.

Then he came home to his family’s farm in 1919, which he worked for 10 years. There is only one Battery D in the Missouri National Guard, and it is called Truman’s Battery.

John Watson