Bob Feller Quotes
I needed to join the Navy. If you ask the people in Europe who won World War II, they don't say the Allies, they say the United States won the war and saved the world.
Feller, Bob, and Burton Rocks. Bob Feller's Little Black Book of Baseball Wisdom. Contemporary Books, 2001, p. 15.
What is particularly interesting about this quotation is that it shows the role that vengeance played in the support of the war effort. Revenge is a “baser” motive than making the world safe for democracy or preserving freedom or stopping dictators. Yet the political and military leadership did not shy away from revenge as a war aim. Contrast this with later wars. Arguably the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor created a different dimension than existed in the Korean or Vietnam wars. Yet in the War on Terror, the attack of 9-11, created a situation like Pearl Harbor did. Yet President Bush and other political and military leaders had a definite policy of never acknowledging that revenge was a factor, despite the fact that many Americans openly saw this as a major war aim.
At the time although the United States was providing material assistance to England, there was still the naïve belief that America could avoid becoming involved in WWII.
Note that he assumes that not only will there be another World War, but he assumes that we will be on opposite sides.
While a pacifist in inclination, Sinclair believed in fighting just and necessary war. Note how civil he was with an organization with whom he did not agree.
Robert William Andrew Feller, nicknamed "The Heater from Van Meter", "Bullet Bob", and "Rapid Robert", was an American baseball pitcher who played 18 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Cleveland Indians. Feller pitched from 1936 to 1941 and from 1945 to 1956, interrupted by a four-year engagement in the United States Navy. In a career spanning 570 games, Feller pitched 3,827 innings and posted a win–loss record of 266–162, with 279 complete games, 44 shutouts, and a 3.25 earned run average (ERA).
