100 years ago tomorrow, April 21, 1918, Manfred von Richthofen, "The Red Barron"

April 19, 2018

One hundred years tomorrow, April 21, 1918, Manfred von Richthofen, "The Red Barron" died. I became interested in him when I saw "It's the Great Pumkin Charlie Brown" with Snoopy going after him, then that Christmas heard the Royal Guardsmen sing "Snoopy's Christmas" (and had vage memories of hearing their song "Snoopy vs. the Red Barron" and happening to get for Christmas a game of Snoopy vs. the Red Barron where different colored marbles were sent down a shoot and you lifte...d the top of Snoopy's dog house and if snoopy caught one color he'd get a point but if he got the other color the Red Barron got the point.

I was wondering what the larger issue was in who was this red barron and what connection with snoopy. So my mom got me a book on the Red Barron. I was expecting him to be some big burley crule looking brute. When I saw his picture I was shocked to see just a young guy who cared about his country and was trying to do his duty and was one of many in the military who's lifes were snuffed out because of war. This and my Grandma reading to me an article about Desmond Doss played a big role in my both respecting the military but wanting to serve to help ease the suffering of war.

When I was serving in Germany on my first day where I could leave the base and start to travel on my own (I had on a previous day off taken a USO trip to a zoo but where they were teaching how to use the German train system) I went up and visited his grave.