Rosie Rosenthal going to war and becoming a pilot to personally bomb the fuck out of Hitler because it was the right thing to do as a human being, and then going home, getting back to work, and then getting offered the chance to be part of the Nuremberg prosecution team.
And he meets his wife--a fellow prosecutor--on the ship over to the trial. And they're married basically the moment they land in Europe.
And then he interrogates Herman Göring personally.
Do you remember those Peanuts strips where Snoopy fights against the Red Baron? The WWI fighting ace? That was fucking Göring. Literally. He was the leader of that squadron.
That's who Rosie Rosenthal interrogated for Nuremberg. His literal mirror image.
He flew 52 fucking missions. He broke his arm twice. He was training to pilot in the Pacific because that war wasn't over even as the ETO came to a close. And his encore to his war service was to fucking take out Herman fucking Göring.
I think the reason WW2 stories stay so close to our hearts if we're Allies is because even if the most unassuming of people became heroes but also, even the unquestionable heroes went far beyond anything that feels real or true for any of us.
But they did.
And in doing so, they gave us something to strive towards. Do I want to go to war, become an icon amongst terrified men, then go back and kick a war criminal all the way in the ass? God no. Not ever. Do I want to, when I am gone, leave a legacy where people saw me go, "I did this because it was fucking right" and then make decisions in their own lives with an eye towards doing what is right? Yes.
