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Comment by vmception | Hacker News Reader

Is there anybody alive that holds this grudge? Even with the article from 2012, I don't know

Was this grudge instilled in children?

Grandpa is 97 this year. He still refuses to support the red cross, because they charged for coffee and donuts in WW2 Guam.

He still talks about it like it was a personal attack. I grew up thinking the Red Cross was a for-profit war-profiteering leach of an organization.

> He still talks about it like it was a personal attack

Not surprising, otherwise he wouldn't hold the grudge for so long.

Many climate change deniers feel like even implying they're a (tiny) part of the (systemic) problem is a personal attack, hence their shitty attitude about science.

I know a guy who died recently who didn't eat rice and exclusively bought Chinese and Korean electronics as a result of his involuntary relocation to a certain pacific island from 1942-45. He wasn't personally the target by any of the orders that the people he was wronged by were following yet I think most people would consider the grudge reasonable since he was personally affected even though it wasn't personally targeted at him. I consider OP's grandfather's grudge to be along those same lines albeit over a much more minor wrong.

> He wasn't personally the target by any of the orders that the people he was wronged by

I study WW2, especially the Pacific.

Trust me, that war was taken very personally, especially by infantry.

(The next time you watch a documentary on Saipan or Tarawa, note the American rifles are pointed at the ground, since the enemy was coming up through cave networks behind lines. Talk about close quarters fighting!)

Until reading the backstory a few years back, I had this grudge. I picked it up from my late father, who was a Lieutenant in the Marines in the late 50's. He'd picked it up, with the admonition that "the Marines never forget" from one of his grizzled old Sergeants, who had been charged for coffee by the Red Cross after the war and never forgave them.

When I was in the Army, everyone hated the Red Cross, although the reasons shifted depending on who you ask. I've never heard about the doughnuts before. Most commonly, other soldiers claimed that they sold donated blood, although how true that is, I don't know.

Yes, The Red Cross and almost all blood donor clinics sell their blood for hundreds of percent in markup. NPR also had a good series on that too: https://www.npr.org/2011/06/10/136931615/blood-bones-and-org...

It's not just blood. If you donate your organs, those are also sold. And the cost of the donated blood or organ is passed on to the recipient (or their insurance at least), probably with additional markup.

There is much, much more recent reporting on this matter. Blood and blood plasma make up something between 1.5% and 2.5% of the United States' exports. Which is weird.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/582509923?storyId=582509923?...

https://www.newsweek.com/two-percent-us-export-income-blood-...

> Was this grudge instilled in children?

Oddly enough, probably yes. The military is a family business, something like 80% of servicemembers have a family member who served. So grandpa bitches about that time back in 1944 when he had to pay for donuts, and you make sure all your buddies know about it.

Institutional memory is a powerful thing, and forms a part of the identity of any members of an organisation with a strong culture.

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