I don’t want to start an international discussion, for these are my private thoughts. But I like Americans. We spent five winters in the States and I must say, everyone was kind and considerate and really very friendly. We made some good friends when we were there. We have lost touch through the years, but the memories of our times together are still a part of my life today.
We did have a problem once. We were hit by a drunk driver. I knew he was drunk because his passenger was tipping up a bottle of whatever. (I don’t know one bottle of booze from another). Luckily we weren’t hurt, but the mirror on my side of the car was whipped right off. Later we went to the police station and were treated with such courtesy and respect I was wide eyed. This was not what was portrayed on the TV. Months later they phoned us in Canada and said they were able to track down the vehicle and restoration for our costs would be forwarded.
I am not always in favour of American military or national policy but then I am not always in favour of Canadian ones either.
We were in Germany in the Canadian Air Force in 1955-58, along with the American military, when I became very ill with asthma. There were no such specialists in our little Canadian hospital and so I was referred to an American specialist in an American hospital. They found the root of the problem and recommended a course of injections that did a good job of keeping my asthma controllable. I thanked God for them then and I still do…I was one sick little lady with a tiny baby and a very concerned husband. We were strangers in a strange land and yet God supplied us with good friends.
They also allowed us to use their PXs (food stores). They carried many things we could not get in ours and were a real blessing to us.
I think Canadians and Americans have set an honorable example to the world of how two countries, with sometimes very different slants on things, can live side by side without throwing bombs at each other. There are many countries I would not want as neighbours!
Perhaps it is the old “Air Force” memories that still linger in me, but I was proud that we were a part of the military that kept the ‘peace’ way back then and I’m glad we had such good friends beside us then and that we have them beside us still.
