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Jul. 20th, 2002 07:55 pmJust finished reading Once Upon a Town by Bob Greene. It tells the story of town in Nebraska called North Platte, one of Union Pacific's trian depots. Ten days after Pearl Harbor the town got word that a troop train carrying their boys, Nebraska Division D, was going to come through. So the whole town got together with coffee and sandwiches and cigarettes and cakes and magazines and all kinds of things to meet the train. Well there was a mix-up and it was actually a train carrying troops from Kansas. The townsfolk went ahead and gave them all the gifts of food, etc. anyway.
When they saw how much this meant to the troops, they decided to meet every troop train that passed through town for the duration of the war. Since every train going to either coast passed through that North Platte, they ended up greeting and providing for over six million soldiers. They gave up their own supplies, in a time of rationing, just to provide this simple service. It got to the point that soldiers would be over seas and conversations would start about "Have you ever been to North Platte?"
Six million soldiers! Just the amount of love and generosity that went into that act!
Of course the book also goes into how the passenger trains stopped and the town has died off a lot and how America has moved from downtown to Walmart Supercenters etc. But I like to think about the America that once was, that was exemplified by Norh Platte during the war.
When they saw how much this meant to the troops, they decided to meet every troop train that passed through town for the duration of the war. Since every train going to either coast passed through that North Platte, they ended up greeting and providing for over six million soldiers. They gave up their own supplies, in a time of rationing, just to provide this simple service. It got to the point that soldiers would be over seas and conversations would start about "Have you ever been to North Platte?"
Six million soldiers! Just the amount of love and generosity that went into that act!
Of course the book also goes into how the passenger trains stopped and the town has died off a lot and how America has moved from downtown to Walmart Supercenters etc. But I like to think about the America that once was, that was exemplified by Norh Platte during the war.