Tag Archives: Pete Kanelis

military news

Dad would be enraged!

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Pete Kanelis is my favorite veteran … but you know that already about him.

He was my dad. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy within hours after hearing that our forces had been attacked at Pearl Harbor and, by God, he wanted to get into the fight of his life immediately.

I now am going to put words in Dad’s mouth.

He would be enraged at what we are learning about what Donald Trump has said about Adolf Hitler, about veterans, about prisoners of war, about those who were wounded — and killed — in action.

The revelations about the Republican presidential nominee’s hideous assertions come from flag officers who served in Trump’s administration. Marine Gen. John Kelly has said Trump wanted generals like those who served Adolf Hitler. Army Gen. Mark Milley has called Trump “fascist to the core.”

Trump’s response has been to denigrate these two patriots, men who have fought with valor. Gen. Kelly is a Gold Star father whose son died in combat in Afghanistan … and who heard Trump refer to KIAs as “losers.”

This latest battering of Trump is getting worldwide coverage as we enter the final two weeks of this campaign. It damn sure should get it.

Dad was not a particularly scholarly man. He wasn’t a deep thinker. However, he was the purest patriot I’ve ever seen. That he traveled to downtown Portland, Ore., on the day our forces were attacked to get into a fight to defend our nation, tells me everything I need to know about the love he had for this great nation.

And this veteran, who faced down Hitler’s forces in combat would be enraged beyond all measure at what a tinhorn GOP politician said about history’s most despicable tyrant.

I would share Dad’s rage.  To think that Donald Trump would want to take command of the world’s greatest military simply makes my blood boil. I only can imagine what my favorite veteran would be thinking today.

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Nazis would spur Dad to action

My father wasn’t an overly political individual, in that he didn’t wear his politics on his sleeve or bellow his views out loud.

However, if there is a cause that might spur Dad into action, it well could be the emergence of these Nazi groups showing up at rallies to protest things like drag shows or those who are accused of mass shootings in schools, shopping malls or churches.

Dad was a proud Navy veteran who fought the Nazis from 1942 until 1945 in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. He endured 105 consecutive days of aerial bombardment from German and Italian warplanes.

He enlisted on Dec. 7, 1941, the day the Japanese bombed our fleet at Pearl Harbor; he wanted to join the Marine Corps, the USMC office in Portland was closed that Sunday, so he walked across the hall and joined the Navy.

Dad didn’t boast about his service to the nation or the role he played in ridding the world of tyranny, but he did speak easily about that time — when someone asked him!

I have been thinking of Dad lately as I see these stories about Nazis rearing their ugliness across the country, seemingly feeling comfortable and “mainstream” in spewing their vicious hatred.

This was the kind of monstrosity that the Greatest Generation suited up to fight after the United States entered World War II.

Dad was one of the 16 million Americans who answered the call.

And this non-political American patriot — the late Pete Kanelis –would be aghast at what he is hearing from the mouths of those whose forebears sought to kill him.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com