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=FYxXFwIPGHk

This was an incredibly difficult job and I thank him for it.

I disagree. My father was also in World War II. He served with the Navy in the Phillipines. My Dad was a a true-believing Mormon his whole life. But my Dad was NEVER the hateful tyrant that Packer was. My Dad loved his gay son (me) and his (my) husband unconditionally. Serving in World War II doesn't give anyone an excuse to be racist, sexist, or homophobic. Three of my uncles also served in World War II. None of them was the hateful bastard Packer was!

I agree with the previous poster. I'm in my seventies and have/had many cousins and others I have known in my small town who were in the fighting and none of them turned out like Packer. Packer is a breed apart from them. And I despite anyone who places themselves in such a high position that they can look down on anyone lower than themselves.

I don't think he's saying Packer definitely turned out the way he did solely because of the war, or that everybody who went to war ended up like that.

I think the OP is saying that he could understand going through those experiences when you're young could mess with SOME people's brain development, and it's possible one of those people could be Packer.

A person like him wasn't really fit to be an Apostle. He's probably ruined many lives, and I doubt his own life was particularly satisfying either.

My mom worked as a "Rosie the Riveter" in a factory. Her future husband, my dad, ran the factory. He was also qualified as a pilot. My mom replaced men who worked on the shop floor and who were sent away to the front lines. She met people like Eleanor Roosevelt and Claire Booth Luce. She also dated another man who was a military pilot.

My mom always said that it would be a mistake to think of WWII as a uniformly dreary time, that there were often parties for men who were going off to war or returning. My impression is that the men and women back then did the very tough jobs they had to do, and met any number of challenges, but also took their joy where they could find it. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die.

My parents were level-headed people who were kind and loving individuals. So were their friends and relatives. My uncles served in the Army and were in the Battle of the Bulge. They were great guys.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2015 07:18PM by summer.

+1. My dad fought in the war too and was of that generation, would have been the same age. The difference is, he never stopped evolving. And even though he was the most TBM of Mormons he only got more loving and accepting as time went on and DID make an attempt to understand others instead of just judging them.

Packer's past does not give him a pass on stunted spiritual growth and just plain egotistical meanness.

This Counterfeit Apostle was a liar and a fraud.

He used his power to spread his absurd bullshit about human sexuality that damaged many thousands of people.

He was a fraud.

I'm glad that he suffered, but not nearly enough to make up for the suffering he caused others.

He will be forgotten almost immediately.

....last week's SCOTUS ruling on SSM. Everything he fought for, for decades, wiped away in an instant. Hundreds of millions of dollars (mostly from members) spent to pass 8, and it was all for naught. He got what he deserved. Bastard.

I don't care what his age or generation was or is. It doesn't excuse racism, misogyny or bigotry of any sort.

I'm not God, but the irony has to be "killing" some of TBMs.

My father fought in WWII and was a decent man after. Boyd didn't have it that tough.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/03/2015 07:13PM by Heresy.

No one in this world is all bad or all good. We may hate the thing(s) he did or said that were harsh, evil and fraudulent, but others will only see his struggles, triumphs and rectitude.

What a lot of nonsense, not to mention a pathetic attempt to whitewash someone who is now dealing with every link in every chain he forged during his lifetime and must now carry through eternity.

My father's four brothers served in WWII. Dad served in the Korean War. They all nearly starved to death in the Depression.

Not one of them became anything like Packer. My dad was one of the kindest, most selfless and most caring souls who ever walked this planet. He loved his children dearly, including his gay son and his son's partner. In his later years he had nothing but contempt for TSCC.

My personal experience with Mr. Packer was in the 60's when he was often at Firesides, and gave talks at BYU. There was nothing I saw that was hateful, or mean. He was a kind man every time I saw him or heard him speak.
I was raised by Depression Era grandparents and family that lived through WW2 when I was born.
Young people today have no reference to those times.

You're probably right (Sarcasm); I mean he would of had to have approved the giving of $2500 in food for homeless youth who receive help from the GLBT Pride Center.

Of course it was his talks and directions that made homophobic parents feel justified to kicking their sons and daughters out into the streets.

The man was NASTY!!! His stinking stench and speeches have entrenched themselves so deep into the Mormon culture, we'll have to wait another 2 decades to try to get it out.

Yeah, its inconceivable that the man changed at all in the 50 years since the 60's. I am sure he wasn't an asshole his entire life, or for every minute of his life but that doesn't change the many despicable things the man said or the fact that the man said them while claiming his words were coming from "god".

Heh, wow, lots of hate. Well worry no more, the little factory has been decommissioned.

There are probably rightful outlashes at injustices (but the anger-for-effect can be turned off immediately as it was an act--I like the "out-of-control gaijin scene of Sean Connery from "Rising Sun"), but at this internet distance, it is probably a just generalization that "all hatred is at base self-hatred." Carried around in an ambient state and just waiting for a chance to get projected.

A cousin of mine LDS who was a Flying Tiger P40 pilot in
WW2 recently died. He was down to earth and never "holier than thou".

What Packer did in that war was heroic for the time but later on I think he became emotionally twisted and turned.

However I agree with Professional Postmo " Give the man his due"

I don't spare a thought for them individually.

Why should BKKKP get special consideration, considering all the evil he spread in his lifetime.

How many gay Mormons committed suicide or were evicted from their homes because of his rhetoric?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2015 11:16AM by axeldc.

IH8BKP

Too bad hell dont exist.

Sympathy?


Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste
I've been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man's soul to waste


You all know the rest.

Professional Postmo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 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.

Vietnam.

When I found out my boyfriend was gay, I went to the bishop, then the SP, and I just KNEW someone had to have answers to gay issues. A "good" friend told me about the talk packer gave called "To The One" and this friend (a bishop) told me to write to packer. I poured my heart out to him.

The reply I got was devastating. All he did was berate and tell me I had no right to write to him, that he was too important to worry about me. I only allowed a few people to read the letter and they were all TBM, too. They were SHOCKED. It just so happened the day I received the letter from him, I had stayed home from work suicidally depressed about the situation. It is good my sister and her husband were with me when I read the letter. I eventually burned the letter because every time I saw it, I had a dark feeling, and I couldn't understand that.

I told my dad about that letter in the last year of his life. He told me if I still had it, he would take out a full page ad in the SLT and publish it. My dad, though never too much a TBM, couldn't understand why I wouldn't go back to "the church." When I told him how the leaders handled me including packer, he was FURIOUS. My dad always told me my husband was born that way once he knew he was gay. The leaders told me NOT to tell my parents.

packer doesn't deserve any respect. The letter he sent me was one of the most disturbing events of my life.

AND I had 2 uncles who served in WWII, as well as my boyfriend's father. None of them are the assholes packer was. I'm glad he's dead. There was celebrating at my house.

I am actually quite certain that my TBM daughter will not even mention his name.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2015 09:28AM by cl2.

Glad I read this today. It's very enlightening.

I'm so sorry you suffered that dark ugly response to your plea for help. You were strong and courageous to survive and thrive such an awful experience.

I'll go ahead and share my personal observation also, as I probably won't do it ever again:

In 1973, I was working downtown SLC and running errands during lunch hour. I was still a TBM at this time. I saw a very dapper dressed man almost strutting down the sidewalk toward me. As I got closer, I realized it was BKP. There was no eye contact but I felt his charisma and I also felt something else that surprised me. It was uneasiness. Why would I possibly feel that around a leader of the church? Years later I was living in Southern Louisiana attending one of their wonderful festivals when I saw a crowd gathered around something. Thinking that it was a street performer, I went to check it out. It was David Duke who was a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. (He was campaigning for public office.) I had the same reaction to him as I had for Boyd Packer. Charisma but repulsion. I've seen a lot of celebrities in my lifetime but those two were the only ones who gave me the willies. (No pun intended).

Whatever shall he do without the respect you feel he's entitled to?

That respect he certainly never felt other people were entitled to either.

A thorough post-mortem psychoanalysis of BKP may offer some insight into the developmental and social conditions that shaped his character. However, in the end all we can do is evaluate his character based on his legacy to Mormons. And that legacy is not worthy of a scintilla of respect in my view.

I never met him, but I've read many of his quotes. I don't think most WWII vets were similar.

Packer will NEVER have my respect or sympathy. PERIOD.

I'm a trained organist and gave many solo recitals in the SLC Tabernacle. I was forbidden by church leaders to play J.S. Bach in morg meetings because of the personal opinion of BKKKP and the policy he instituted with the so called approved LDS music.

The greatest church musician and composer of organ music was, imo, J.S. Bach whose musical output dwarfs anything that emanated from any prolific LDS musician.

BKKKP was the death nail to allowing the best of music to be heard in LDS meetings.

What a loss!! Such music raises spirits and brings hope to church goes wherever it's played.

Well, I do believe that almost everyone has some good and some bad in them. Different people in different proportions.

But to say that someone whose current legacy is one of hatred and bigotry and ignorance deserves respect and consideration *now* because of something that he went through decades ago --- uh, no, I don't see that. None of that somehow justifies what he did with his life after WWII.

And what he did with the rest of his life is what he will be most clearly remembered for. And it is rightly so.

Nor does the "mindset of the World War II vet generation" justify the terrible things that Packer said and did later in life. As others have pointed out, there are many WWII vets who lived lives of kindness and compassion. Packer did not. He gave in to cruelty and glorified mindlessness, making it all the worse by broadcasting it as if it were holy wisdom. Nothing that anyone went through in WWII justifies doing that later on.

It's like the whole load of nonsense that apologists use to try to justify the awful things that Brigham Young said, and encouraged. "He was a product of his time." Ridiculous! His time had many people who were decent and good. His time had many people who rejected hatred and greed and evil. That he pandered to it was his own personal choice, and not in any way something for which he is to be excused because of some faulty "spirit of the times."

True that about JS Bach.

One has to wonder how he had the time to compose his plethora of masterpieces at the same time he was fathering 20+ children, 4 of whom became prolific composers in their own write.....

Boyd K. Packer did serve in the US Army Air Corp during WWII. However his brother was a general and saw to it that Packer did not arrive in the Pacific Theater in the Philipines until Japan surrendered. SSome of his family have mistakenly published that he was a bomber pilot in the 8th Airforce ( 8th air force was in England/France/Belgium/ Germany - my dad was 8th air force.)

He did not fly any combat missions against Japan!

He tells stories of flying into Japan in trouble, but that was after the war was over and he was part of the occupation force.

His biggest achievments in Japan were setting up LDS branches. I am writing a book about Mormon's in the US Army Air Corp and have collected quite a bit of documentation on Packer.

That makes sense, since experiencing trauma and seeing humanity at its worst often leaves people with more empathy and compassion for the human condition, not the opposite. As this thread developed I was left feeling skeptical that Packer had actually seen any real action at all during the war, it just didn’t fit. Your insight makes perfect sense.

He was a prophetic fraud. He gets no respect. He's the last to die of the infamous 5 in the photo with Mark Hofmann. Not even Boyd had the spirit of discernment to know the document presented by Hofmann was a forgery.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=photo+mark+hofmann&view=detailv2&&&id=AC9DDF879688F7FAC042EAD5646D98875F5C9B50&selectedIndex=1&ccid=6YE3EQTX&simid=608034260118145863&thid=JN.Bb9Ki1XR9ywVAYDwUziLAA&ajaxhist=0

Yes, and Joseph Stalin had his reasons, as did Pol Pot and Idi Amin.