Fruits and Nuts

For a sobering read, get on the internet on Google or Wikipedia and search "The Battle of Hurtgen Forest". It was by far the biggest loss of US lives in one single battle during WWII. About 33,000 soldiers died.

Also, look up the Battle of Stalingrad, read about it, then listen to Shostakovich's 8th symphony...which Stalin requested Shostakovich write as a "victory symphony", but was banned because Shostakovich wrote it as a tragic commentary on the death and destruction that Stalin had inflicted on his people through his blatant disregard for human life as he send millions of his young men to die at the hands of the invading germans. The symphony revealed Shostakovich's bitterness towards the opression that weighed so heavily on the russian people. It speaks volumes of his opinion that the Russian "victory" at Stalingrad, although in principle a victory because the Germans were driven out of the city, was actually a tragic loss never to be forgotten, by virtue of its crippling loss of human life and widespread destruction of the city.

Sad.