President Harry S. Truman had a sign on his desk that had this expression on the front and the phrase “I’m from Missouri” on the reverse. The Phrase Finder reports that Fred M. Canfil, a friend of Truman’s, had seen the expression on a sign and had another made and sent to Truman. It is likely that Canfil had seen the sign on the desk of army officer Colonel A. B. Warfield, who had the sign on his desk as early as 1931. Truman intended for people to know that he would not “pass the buck,” which, as was posted previously, means to pass responsibility. Poker players often used a knife with a buck horn handle to indicate the dealer. That person would “pass the buck” or responsibility for dealing the next person.
Author Archives: RF_Alum
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
The copy of the book by Laura Hillenbrand I read was purchased by the Friends of the Westminster Colorado Public library. The book was selected by the Northern Colorado Common Read (NCCR) for this year and there were several discussion sessions that included meetings with veterans. The book is the story of Louis Zamperini. He was saved from a delinquent childhood by a bother who convinced him to try out long distance running. He broke the high school record for the mile. He was a star on the University of California track team where he met a mysterious Japanese man named Jimmie Sasaki who later turned up as a Japanese military official. Louis finished seventh in the 5000 meters at the Berlin Olympics. He soon was a bombardier on raids over Japanese targets in the Pacific, and perhaps the brutal training and running of the 5000 meter “torture chamber” prepared him for what was in store.
Louis participated in several bombing runs against Japanese targets, and was one of three who survived a plane crash in the Pacific. They had two small rafts and meager supplies; the survival kit did not make it to their rafts. One of the other men ate the entire supply of chocolate the first night, which left them with no food. Louis caught an albatross that landed on his head, the meat was so putrid they couldn’t eat it, but they did catch a small fish with a hook baited with the meat. Sharks circled the rafts for almost the entire 47 days of drifting. The sharks occasionally resorted to trying to jump into the rafts and had to be fended off with the oars.
The men teetered on starvation with only an occasional fish, bird, or the livers from a couple of small sharks to keep them barely alive. They roasted under the sun, and rains came just often enough to keep them from dying of thirst.
The men fired a flare to attract a plane, which turned out to be Japanese. The plane made several strafing runs, shot up the rafts, but miraculously missed the men. One raft couldn’t be saved and became a sun shade. They patched the other raft despite the fact the sandpaper in the patching kit was not waterproof and the sand had fallen off. One of the men died shortly before the raft drifted up to an island where a Japanese boat took the two survivors captive. Continue reading