Posted by:
Professional Postmo
(
)
Date: July 03, 2015 06:25PM
From this thread on NOM boards
"I think that to understand Packer you have to understand the mindset of the World War II vet generation.
These are men and women who grew up in untold economic hardship, and then were exposed to horrific violence, often before they reach their twenties. There are few generations in American history who have been so traumatized, or lived with such an enormous threat. For forty-five years after the war, they lived with the expectation of another war and that reflected in a politic of bluster and fearmongering.
How do you get through that? American history attests to this: you paint it as one great struggle, and yourself as the winner. While I won't deny that the bravery of WW2 vets made the world a much better place than I could have been, the narrative became "America saved the world and American values guard the world."
Packer comes from that world. According to the Deseret News, he wrote "Are You Ready To Die?" in his military Book of Mormon. He flew bombing missions in the Pacific in the war. This is a man who has dropped firebombs on civilian populations in the name of a greater good--and his whole life, people have attested to the fact of that greater good. He's been surrounded by people who were in similar situations. Neal A. Maxwell was on the ground with the Marines in Okinawa. L Tom Perry was in Saipan, also with the Marines.
For a lot of people in that generation, including my own grandfather (although he was a little too young to see any action), America had become a beacon of light, saving the world, and proving every bit of American exceptionalism in the Book of Mormon. The 60s and 70s, and the various changes to that white-bread hard-working hard-fighting culture that they brought, were Satan's attempts to rot the heart of the great strong tree."
Here is a 7 minute clip from "Fog of War" that talks about the fire bombing of Japan (Packer was one of these pilots)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYxXFwIPGHkThis was an incredibly difficult job and I thank him for it.