My wife and I were watching an old rerun of one of NCIS New Orleans shows. Well, let me correct myself. She was watching it. I was writing and occasionally, a few of the words from the show penetrated my attention. She started getting upset with the show so I terminated it.

An old memory came to mind. Many years ago, I watched a show that was on PBS, Foyle’s War. It was one of the few shows that PBS had that was really good in many ways. When I looked it up on the internet, I saw that Amazon had the first episode free. I clicked on the button, “watch free.” In seconds, and I mean seconds, the opening scene popped up on the computer screen.

In minutes, my thoughts were, why don’t they make shows like that anymore. Nowadays, they don’t sell plots, they sell sex and gore. Well, occasionally they have something of a plot snuck in there. I am even disappointed with the original NCIS show these days.

At any rate, as they advertised, it was free and worth every penny. Even more, there were no station breaks, as they like to call it. As I eluded to, I saw it years ago and I enjoyed then too. However, I had forgotten many of the little things that I saw that made it such a good show. It wasn’t just the main plot that made it so good but all the little sub-plots woven in.

The show opens in England at the time that WWII is just starting and it brings to mind many of the nuances that we don’t normally consider, such as the problems that they had with Germans, good and bad living throughout island nation. Unlike as with the US, they did not have the option of deciding whether or not to incarcerate people of a suspicious background. If they had a German background, they were imprisoned. The survival of the nation was at hand and little mistakes could not be afforded. It also brought out the way people in high places were taking advantage of the of war, using it to make their fortune.

There was another important aspect that the show presented. While the vast efforts had to be put into their national defense, they still needed police as there were still those that broke the law. Then too, it was a country that was emersed in traditions, in royalty and in day-to-day-life that was being turned into a nation of nightmares and daily disasters and interruptions in daily life.

I wouldn’t say it was an eyeopener. I was aware of it all. However, it was somewhat different, in a way to see it, as reality opening up before me, forcing me to see what can happen when men seek power. It is the greed and power hunger, not only of Hitler and his minions, but also of the person down the street who will still rob you blind given the chance. Indeed they will even take advantage of the war to take from his fellow man. Then there are those in the government who sought the positions of power and abused that power.

In a way, it was as looking in a mirror. The same thing happened in the US. There were and are those who would like to take advantage of great danger to take that which is ours from us, even our very freedom as well as our security for their personal benefit.

I guess wars do bring out the best and the worst in all of us. It just is, the power hungry always win the vote. We want peace, they want war. They always get the war and we are not permitted to object. It would seem all we need is one greedy man to disrupt the lives of millions. Well, of course, it would seem they never seem to have any problem building their help. It was only in a few short years that took a nation from the shambles of WWI to a nations that took over virtually all of Europe to and threatened the most powerful country on earth. When you look back over it, if it weren’t for just a few key battles, a few desperate measures, Britain would be no more.

Nowadays, we don’t think about it much. We may go months without thinking how close it really was. It is all taken for granted, not realizing that we are really even today in even more danger than they were back then. We now, as then, go about our daily lives not thinking how fast our lives might be disrupted so quickly by power seekers, both within and without of our country. You don’t think it can happen. many of those that were in the towers that were destroyed didn’t think it would happen either. In a few short minutes, the live of people were destroyed. The city would go through years recovering from the disruption. Even the nation was set back on its heels. And even now, we can’t board a plane without being reminded of it.

It does make me wonder, just what must happen to make us aware that there are those on this earth, even just down the street who seek power for their benefit, and they will take from us whatever they want, even the lives of family and friends.