Lenny Mishik

McLaren fan since 1967

[Untold War Stories @UntoldWarFacts]

The last generation that fought World War Two is disappearing.

But something else may be disappearing with them. The understanding of what they actually fought for.

Recent surveys suggest many young adults already struggle to place some of the most basic events of the war.

This is what's quietly happening to these memories..🧵1/7

[Lenny Mishik @LMishik]

@autosport F1 needs more Daniel Ricciardos and less Max Verstappens 🧡

[Getty Images Motorsport @MSI_Images]

Mexico's "maestro de la lluvia" and 1968 #LeMans24 winner Pedro Rodríguez lost his life at the Norisring #OnThisDay 55 years ago. 🌟

Alongside two #F1 WDC wins, deerstalker fan Rodríguez earned a swathe of victories at prestigious endurance events, including Daytona and Spa. 🏆

[McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team @McLarenF1]

A giant Papaya Kiwi? Count us in 😍

#McLarenF1

[Scott Houghton @McLarenCollectr]

The M6GT is absolutely beautiful.

MSO have truly excelled!!!

#McLarenF1 #McLarenFOS

[Untold War Stories @UntoldWarFacts]

This is a real US Army Air Corps recruiting film, the kind shown in movie theaters during World War II.

Young men watched it between features, and on the way out, they were told to stop at the box office and sign up.

And thousands of them did, knowing exactly how dangerous it was.

This is the story of the generation that answered..

A Night at the Movies
Picture the moment. A young man sits in a darkened theater in 1943, somewhere in small-town America. Between the newsreel and the feature, this film flickers onto the screen. Sleek fighters rolling through the clouds. Great bombers thundering into the sky. Men with silver wings on their chests.

For a generation of boys who had grown up watching aircraft pass overhead and dreaming of flight, it was everything. The chance to fly, to serve, to be part of the greatest fight of their lives.

At the end came the invitation. Stop by the box office on your way out for complete information.

One famous recruiting film of the era led more than 150,000 young men to sign up to fly. All across the country, ordinary young men walked out of a movie theater and toward a recruiting desk. Farm boys, factory workers, students, clerks. Most had never flown in their lives. Many had never left their home state.

They were about to enter the most dangerous skies on Earth.

They Knew the Risks
They did not go in blind.

By 1943, the young men signing up had a fair idea of what they were choosing. They had read the casualty lists in their local papers. They knew boys from their own towns who had gone up and not come back. Word traveled. Everyone understood that flying in combat was among the most dangerous things a person could do in the entire war.

The numbers behind that feeling were staggering. The Eighth Air Force, flying from England, would lose more than 26,000 men killed. That is more fatal casualties than the entire United States Marine Corps suffered in all of World War Two. For the men in the bombers, the air crews, the death rate climbed higher than in almost any other branch of the service.

In the darkest stretch of 1943, only about one in four Eighth Air Force bomber crewmen completed a full tour of missions.

They knew. And they signed up anyway.

The Most Dangerous Skies on Earth
What waited for them was a kind of combat no generation had ever faced before.

The bomber crews flew in daylight, deep into enemy territory, often before long-range fighter escorts could protect the whole way. They climbed to 25,000 feet, where the air was so thin they needed oxygen to breathe and so cold, around forty below, that exposed skin could freeze in moments.

And then the enemy came. German fighters slashing through their formations. Anti-aircraft shells, called flak, bursting all around them, filling the sky with jagged steel. One airman described it as being trapped in a game of Russian roulette. You were going to be hit, he said. It was only a question of where, and when.

The fighter pilots faced their own trials, dueling enemy aces, nursing shot-up aircraft home over the sea, taking off again and again knowing the odds caught up with almost everyone eventually.

These were boys, many of them still teenagers, doing all of this miles above the earth.

They Kept Going Up
And here is the thing that should stay with us.
They kept going up. A bomber crew might watch the plane beside them explode, see friends fall from the sky, land with their aircraft torn to pieces, and then be told they were flying again the next morning. And they went. Not because they were fearless, but because they had a job to finish and men beside them who were counting on them.

They wrote calm letters home so their mothers would not worry. They gave their aircraft cheerful names and painted them on the nose. They found ways to laugh between missions that might kill them. And when the call came, they climbed back into the cockpit.

That quiet, stubborn courage, repeated by hundreds of thousands of young men, is what won the war in the air.

The Generation That Answered
When you watch that old recruiting film now, it is easy to see only the polished images and the confident narrator.

But remember what it really was. An invitation, offered to a generation of ordinary young Americans, to step out of a movie theater and into history. And remember that they took it, freely, knowing the price might be everything.

Many of them never came home. They are buried under white crosses in England, in France, in Italy, and beneath the seas they flew over. The boys who did come home rarely bragged about it. They went back to their farms and factories and families and quietly built the country we live in now.

They were not born heroes. They were just young men in a movie theater, who stood up when their country asked, and answered.

This was the story of the generation that answered.

I post a story like this every single day. Most people never see them. Follow so you don't miss the next one.

[Gain of Fauci @DschlopesIsBack]

Washington’s Dream For America 🇺🇸😂

[Matthew McConaughey @McConaughey]

bets still on the table America, yet.

[Maria Shriver @mariashriver]

People are traveling, gathering together, barbecuing, celebrating the 250th anniversary of this nation in various ways. And then we have this…

An American service member using his right to free speech, guaranteed in our nation’s constitution. A right given to all of us every day. Regardless of your political affiliation, read or watch Major Jason Watson’s full statement. It’s powerful. He has served and is serving. He is speaking up and out, and for that he was arrested.

Free speech, freedom of religion, a free press, the freedom to vote for who you choose, the freedom to love who you choose. These are all things we celebrate on our nation’s birthday. They are what makes us a democracy, among many other things. So as you gather, as you grill, as you plan your day, think of Major Watson, think of the freedoms you hold dear, and don’t just celebrate them, but make sure generations to come will have these rights as well! 🇺🇸

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

WATCH: Former special counsel Jack Smith joined Nicolle Wallace for his first ever interview with a message to Donald Trump as the president seeks his indictment: he will not be intimidated. @TheRickWilson reacts on @TheBeatWithAri:

[F1 B-Side @F1BSide]

#8 Bruce McLaren
Eagle-Weslake T1G
1967 #F1 #FrenchGP

[shelby @thetrueshelby]

Yup

[A @bluhue123]

Raise your hand ✋ if you STAND with Gavin Newsom against Trump

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Ty Cobb on Donald Trump: “This is not America. We should all be ashamed of this man, we should all be embarrassed by this man, and we should all be doing everything we can to ensure that he leaves the White House as quickly as possible”

[Scott MacFarlane @MacFarlaneNews]

Wow.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) floor speech on Trump Admin. corruption has now received 1 million views

He opens the remarks by arguing that Trump has turned the White House into a 24/7 corruption operation

https://t.co/0GEyvQd51z

[😱 Scary Larry 😱 🇺🇦✊🏻🇺🇸🗽 @aintscarylarry]

Attention ABC and CBS: This is how you handle it when a fascist is pushing you around. You don’t cave in, fire people, cancel shows, and give him loads of cash to make him leave you alone. You fucking fight back.

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Jon Ossoff: “They worked harder burying the Epstein Files than they ever worked to lower your grocery bill. And while you pay more for everything, the Trumps are raking in billions. Illegal tariffs, failed war, healthcare cuts, and unmatched corruption. 34% approval and a presidential legacy cemented in disgrace”

[Demetriou Neto @NetoDemetriou]

Bruce McLaren, McLaren, Monaco, 1969. Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch.

[The Daily Show @TheDailyShow]

America's been at war for months, and no one thought to call Iran's nuclear inspectors before 2am Sunday night?

[MP Arizona☀️🏳️‍🌈💙🌵🐕🐕‍🦺🫂💦🏜🐟🌴🎙🌎🌻♍️🌊 @AzPetrich]

Pete Hegseth fired a Navy Vice Admiral to make her disappear, and yesterday the voters of South Carolina handed her a path to a seat in Congress. Her name is Nancy Lacore.