R.I.P. George McGovern

[shortbun]

Great and compassionate man dedicated to service for his country.

 

[violetrose]

Oh no I hadn't heard this. I campaigned with my parents when I was 12 years old for McGovern in the '72 election. I am so sorry to hear he has passed, he was a great man.

 

[low-key]

he always seemed like a good man to me, he was 90, but still sorry to see him die

 

[Geoff_M]

The late historian Stephen Ambrose featured McGovern in his book "The Wild Blue" that was about B-24 crews in WWII. He recounts a great story from McGovern about one time they were returning from a mission over Germany and they had to manually release a couple of stuck bombs in their bomb bay as it was unsafe to land with armed bombs still aboard. One of the crew worked away at un-jamming the bombs as they flew over French farmland. At last, the bombs fell. However, as they came into view, McGovern realized that the bombs were heading towards a isolated small farm house surrounded by fields. He hoped they would miss the home, but was horrified to see them score a direct hit. Knowing that it was the typical French farm family's lunch time, he was certain that his crew had just killed an innocent family.

Years later, after he became a national political figure, he was at an event and a man came forward and said that it was his house that McGovern's plane had accidentally bombed. McGovern was relieved to hear the man also say that no one was in the home at the time as they were still out working. In a humorous twist, the man said that he never had any hard feelings about the incident since they hated the Germans and, even though they didn't know what strategic value their house had, if the Allies thought it needed to be destroyed to defeat the Nazis, it was OK with them too!

 

[FergieTCat]

My brother campaigned for him (as well as Joe Biden) in 1972. We even named our cat McGovern (I think I still have her tag somewhere.)