WWII Veteran Says it Was Not Worth it for What We Have Today

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My message is, I can see in my mind’s eye those rows and rows of white stones and all the hundreds of my friends who gave their lives, for what? The country of today?

“No, I’m sorry, but the sacrifice wasn’t worth the result of what it is now.

…

What we fought for was our freedom, but now it’s a darn sight worse than when I fought for it.

Alec Penstone
November 7, 2025
Winning Second World War was not worth it, says D-Day veteran

He is talking about the U.K. I cannot help but conclude this means people must be thinking their government of today is tyrannical. With the surveillance society, restrictions on free speech, firearms ownership, and even knife ownership I can see how a strong case can be made for that.

I wish them luck in recovering their freedom.

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8 thoughts on “WWII Veteran Says it Was Not Worth it for What We Have Today”

  1. I’m not a combat veteran but I served 21 years in the Navy and I’m borderline ashamed that I wasted that much of my life defending the country that this place has turned into.

    Under Trump and Hegseth, the military is starting to get back to its roots and back on mission, so I wouldn’t tell people “absolutely don’t join the military” any more, as I would have a few years ago, but you’ve still got to temper the positives of military service against the “who and what, exactly, am I making these sacrifices for?”

    If you’re doing it for “my country” don’t bother. It isn’t worth it any more. You’re better off staying in, or moving to, one of the few remaining states that are still American and doing your best to serve it and it’s people…probably by guarding the border and preventing any refugees from the socialist states from coming in and ruining your state too.

    BTW: I currently live in Virginia. After the last election our “Get the F Out” plans are in full motion.

    • Who and what? For most of the last 50 years it’s not been white Christian Americans, it’s been foreign elites with small hats.

      I served. My dad served during the opening parts of the Korean war. All my uncles served at various times. My grandfather served before and during WWII. A great aunt served as a WAAC in WWII. My great-grandfather served during the Span-Am war in Cuba. I do not recommend military services to anyone I care about today. The more I learn of the background our military adventures over the last century and a half, the less proud I am of my service. It was the right thing to do given what I knew at the time, and I had some cool adventures, but in retrospect I was serving forces seeking the destructing of Christendom.

      It would be very hard to argue that Europe would be in a worse position now if we (the USA) had never gotten involved in WWI or WWII. At the current rate, most of Europe and quite likely America will be eyeball deep in civil war of some sort within 15 years, possibly within ten. That said, that may not be a bad thing in the long run, though painful to go through.

      • At the current rate, most of Europe and quite likely America will be eyeball deep in civil war of some sort within 15 years, possibly within ten. That said, that may not be a bad thing in the long run, though painful to go through.

        “The Tree of Liberty” and its “natural manure”, and all that.

        Or as another, semi-cynical take points out (paraphrasing): The probability of the next major war is inversely proportional to the number of people alive who remember the last one. Our OIF/OEF and “Desert Storm” veterans are aging, our Vietnam vets are old, our remaining Korean vets older still, and our WWII vets have pretty much passed on. And I’m not sure what of those other than WWII count as a “major war”.

  2. Curt: Thank you for your service. I too retired without firing a shot in anger. I was an Intelligence Analyst. A FOBbit in GWOT parlance. Any time I could have personally fired a weapon without violating ROE I had no opportunity. Difficult to return fire strapped into the back of an MRAP or Blackhawk helicopter or in the middle of a FOB as indirect mortar and rocket rounds fell nearby. We also serve who are POGs. I’m proud of my service but I’m extremely bitter about the waste of lives and treasure in the GWOT. We never should have deployed regular forces to Afghanistan. Retaliation for 9-11 should have been a STRATCOM mission to utterly destroy all terrorist fascilities there simultaneously. Over in less than a day. In Iraq we should have occupied in force for 50+ years and utterly broken their tribal society through de-Bathification trials, like Nuremberg, and rebuilding in our image as McArthur did in Japan. Instead we wasted decades and hundreds of billions of dollars and shattered thousands of American lives with nothing to show for it.

  3. Sadly, Mr. Penstone will go to his eternal reward knowing he was betrayed.

  4. In the words in a movie I can’t remember the name of; ” Wars are never about what they say they are. It’s always about who gets what.”
    And so it has always been in every war when one finds themself fight for anything other than the dirt they own.
    The problem we have is forgetting the ideals those human sacrifices were for.
    That failing has plagued humanity since time began. And we see it rearing it’s ugly head once again.
    Thank you Alec, for reminding us of our failings. May we take it to heart and learn.

    • I had similar thoughts. But I doubt even Starmer is stupid enough to lock up a 100 year old WWII veteran for telling the truth.

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