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 and/or war:
“And now on benches all are sat
In the cool air to sit and chat,
Till Phoebus, dipping in the West,
Shall lead the world the way to rest.”
—Charles Cotton (1630–1687)
“War is bestowed like electroshock on the depressive nation; thousands of volts jolting the system, an artificial galvanizing, one effect of which is loss of memory. War comes at the end of the twentieth century as absolute failure of imagination, scientific and political. That a war can be represented as helping a people to “feel good” about themselves, their country, is a measure of that failure.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)