May 9—U.S. war veteran Col. Frank Cohn (ret.), now 97 years old, is an optimist on a mission. He fought against the Nazis in World War II and met Soviet soldiers at Torgau on the Elbe River on April 25, 1945, when the two armies met. On the occasion of the victory in Europe over the Nazis, Cohn says: "While it is probably a false hope, I am an optimist, and I hang onto the time when things looked bright for all of us—back in May 1945. Yes, there was terrible devastation all around us, but the spirit was correct. We were going to go forward and repair the world, we were allies, we were friends.... Now, I go and participate to bring back that moment. It is not an easy thing to do at my age, but I must do it as long as I can, because someone young might catch that simmering glow of a short-lived peaceful world surrounded with friendship, and in remembrance, perhaps years far in the future, say with the political power that he or she might have attained: ''We can do this again!'"
