On the way home from Cedar City last night, I heard talk about how someone threw a shoe at President Bush while he visited the nation of Iraq. As people remarked about this for other reasons, I considered how powerful an indicator of progress this makes.
While living in Innsbruck, my missionary companion and I performed service at a place that gave people with mental and physical disabilities something productive to do. One week, we worked with Hans (*name has been changed*) who ran the woodworking section of the facility, which was sort of an Austrian version of Opportunity Village. As he and I helped the patients paint the displays Hans cut for them to paint and assemble, he told me a story.
Shortly after the Anschluess, when Austria came under control of the Third Reich, Hitler paid a visit to Innsbruck to do some skiing. Hans' grandfather, at the time the mayor of Innsbruck, showed up as obliged to meet the Nazi leader, but instead of returning the Nazi salute as Hitler arrived on the stage, this man instead flipped him the middle finger (or the Austrian equivalent). The SS shot him down where he stood.
All of Hans' uncles were sent to the Russian front as well as his father, and his aunts were sent to work outside Mathausen in support of the concentration camp being set up there. Only Hans' father survived the war, but he changed his name to protect his family.
If any man had thrown a shoe at Hitler, the SS would have shot him down where he stood. It just goes to show how much bigger America and her current president, the great George W Bush, are compared to tyrants, dictators, and terrorists around the world.
While living in Innsbruck, my missionary companion and I performed service at a place that gave people with mental and physical disabilities something productive to do. One week, we worked with Hans (*name has been changed*) who ran the woodworking section of the facility, which was sort of an Austrian version of Opportunity Village. As he and I helped the patients paint the displays Hans cut for them to paint and assemble, he told me a story.
Shortly after the Anschluess, when Austria came under control of the Third Reich, Hitler paid a visit to Innsbruck to do some skiing. Hans' grandfather, at the time the mayor of Innsbruck, showed up as obliged to meet the Nazi leader, but instead of returning the Nazi salute as Hitler arrived on the stage, this man instead flipped him the middle finger (or the Austrian equivalent). The SS shot him down where he stood.
All of Hans' uncles were sent to the Russian front as well as his father, and his aunts were sent to work outside Mathausen in support of the concentration camp being set up there. Only Hans' father survived the war, but he changed his name to protect his family.
If any man had thrown a shoe at Hitler, the SS would have shot him down where he stood. It just goes to show how much bigger America and her current president, the great George W Bush, are compared to tyrants, dictators, and terrorists around the world.
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