Tag: Time Magazine

On Children in Wartime

In 2016, Time magazine published a story that recognized the 75th anniversary of the entry of the United States into World War 2. It did so by recalling the stories of several children whose lives were directly affected by that war, children who witnessed the war first-hand, and children who, as adults, were still alive and sharing those tales when the article was written. And the stories these adults told of their experiences in wartime still resonate today, now more than 80 years after the US entered the war.

Take the story of Walter, a boy who was 13 when he witnessed the power of modern warfare first-hand. Walter tells of feeling an explosion of bombs so close to him that it almost knocked him down, even though he was almost half a mile away from the blast. He then recalled how, later that day, the long procession of coffins, each one containing the body of one of the dead in them, the dead who had been the targets of the bombing, were brought past his house. And he clearly remembers the blood splotches that were clearly evident on and stood out against the yellow-white of the coffin wood as they passed, stacked high on the back of military trucks.

Then there’s the tale told by Edwin who was 14. He was eating his cornflakes one morning when he saw the planes fly low overhead and then begin to strafe the targets on the ground below them. He was fascinated and horrified at the same time. It seemed like a movie to Edwin; surely, humans couldn’t willfully bring such violent destruction to other humans in this way, he remembers thinking at the time. He then remembers the countless nights of blackouts, of building a bomb shelter, of hoping–no, praying–that if he hid under his bed when and if the planes returned, that the mattress would be thick enough to stop the bullets…

How about the tale told by a boy whose family called “Chick?” Chick was 12 when the war came home to him. He and his brother were making some spare change at a local cafe by washing dishes for the breakfast customers. A taxi driver stopped by for coffee and told the boys through the service window to the back that if they wished to see the war first-hand, to go outside and climb up on the roof of the cafe. That vantage point would give them a great view of some live war action. The boys did so. But what Chick saw frightened. him: Hundreds, he later said, hundreds of puffs of smoke indicating bombings and anti-aircraft fire. He took his brother and ran home. He yelled for his mother as the brothers entered the yard in front of their home. “Momma! It’s war!” he screamed. Sure enough, as soon as his mother ran out of the house at her son’s cry, a bomb screeched down and struck the neighbor’s house with an ear-splitting explosion. Chick knew the family next door was dead. The fire that resulted from the bombing quickly spread to all the houses in the neighborhood, including that of Chick’s family.

All three of these boys and many, many other children saw war up close and personal, witnessed death up close and personal. Today, in dozens of conflicts around the world, children are still forever changed by their personal experiences with warfare and the death and destruction that are caused by it. These American boys who spoke to Time 75 years after the fact, however, were slightly different than other American children during World War 2.

You see, all three of these boys were of Japanese descent and living in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, when the Japanese Navy launched their attack on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941.

On an Agriculturalist

The myth of the Small American Farmer has been such for at least the past 70 years or so. Corporate farms–large plant or meat-growing facilities, owned and operated at the lowest cost and highest profit possible–have been the norm since the end of World War 2. But that’s not the case in much of the world in Africa and parts of Asia and the India subcontinent.

There, and, to be fair, in parts of South America as well, subsistence farming or small-profit farming is the norm. We in the west can’t relate to the cycle of plant/pray/harvest that much of the world endures yearly. Add to this fact that the world climate is changing, that African rainfall amounts that were stingy to begin with are now even more capricious and precious, that soils that were sandy are becoming even more so, that what remains of African forests (forests that are key to producing rainfall) are being destroyed at an exponentially astounding rate.

Enter into this bleak picture one Monty Jones. Monty Jones was born in the east African nation of Sierra Leone in 1951, and he received university degrees in agriculture and plant genetics from universities across the continent culminating with a doctorate from a university in the UK. Monty grew up with the realization that African agriculture was inadequate for meeting the needs of the population and would, over time, become more so. He’s one of those visionaries who can see a situation and size it up quickly and then look for possible options that would serve as solutions. And he applied this gift to the food crisis on his native continent.

Monty realized that there were some things that he/we could realistically control and many that we could not. He knew that he would be unable to apply political or economic pressure to those who were destroying the forests and changing the planet’s temperature. So, Monty set himself to deal with those factors he could control as much as national/regional politics, economics, and climate would allow him. To organize this large-scale venture, Monty set up an organization called NERICA–New Rice for Africa. It would be not only the group that would work with governments but also be the fundraising, education, and implementation arm of the work. Monty knew that such a large task as working to transform the agriculture of a goodly chunk of a continent required a good organization, and that’s what NERICA is.

Here was the issue as Monty saw it. How could he get African rice, which is drought resistant, pest resistant, and grows well in sandy soil, to be as productive as Asian rice, which produces much higher yields with a much higher nutrition content? Monty developed the method of creating a hybrid of the two types, and, interestingly, he actually improved both strands of the crop. His hybrid rice achieved all he hoped it would, but it also created a strand that increased yield in a shorter growing cycle. Now, the spread of Monty’s strain of rice is still going on across Africa as he and NERICA face political, cultural, and traditional barriers, but the potential of the hybrid to at least begin to address the African food crisis is astounding and promising. Time magazine recognized Monty as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

And that solution of a hybrid rice strain is the reason much of the world knows who Monty Jones is.

And because you can simply go to the store and get anything you wish without having to consider how or when or why it was produced–that’s the reason you don’t.