World War II
On December 8, 1941, Hansen enlisted in the US Navy as a petty officer. He served mostly in the Pacific theatre and was awarded six battle stars. Following the war, he worked out of Omaha as a multi-state field organizer for the American Veterans Committee, a progressive veterans organization formed to oppose the more conservative American Legion.
Read more about this topic: Merle Hansen
Famous quotes containing the words world war ii, world and/or war:
“One ... aspect of the case for World War II is that while it was still a shooting affair it taught us survivors a great deal about daily living which is valuable to us now that it is, ethically at least, a question of cold weapons and hot words.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“You can’t, in sound morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It is his clear duty. And least of all can you condemn an artist pursuing, however humbly and imperfectly, a creative aim. In that interior world where his thought and his emotions go seeking for the experience of imagined adventures, there are no policemen, no law, no pressure of circumstance or dread of opinion to keep him within bounds. Who then is going to say Nay to his temptations if not his conscience?”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“But no, he only said,
“Well, there’s the storm. That says I must go on.
That wants me as a war might if it came.
Ask any man.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)