Hopeless Times and Dreams of Flight - Conclusion

In the wake of the Great Depression, many Americans felt as though they could overcome the economic downturn through their own merits. This nation is home to many talented and daring men and women, and their own ingenuity had brought them prosperous lives within this country. However, the economic collapse of the 1930s was a beast unlike anything this nation had ever faced, and many Americans soon found out that the battle could not be won through their own merits. 

The lives of the pilots described in this project exemplify that individual merit is not always the solution to crises. Pilots encounter many obstacles that prevent their flight including poor weather conditions, navigational errors, and overwhelming pressure. No pilot could hope to make successful flights without the aid of others, nor could they begin to live their dreams without the guidance of other experienced pilots. 

The Great Depression was a catastophe that could only have been overcome through national unity under the Roosevelt Administration. With the President's guidance, the nation was able to make its way out from the depths of the economic collapse and emerge a powerful world player.

However, individual ingenuity is not without its place. President Roosevelt had to take unorthodox methods in facing the Great Depression and challenge conventional norms of what the federal government was expected to do. These decisions took daring, and without them, it is unlikely that this nation would have recovered from the economic collapse.

In this project's opening, I quoted my grandfather's journals during his occupancy of Japan following the close of the Second World War. He states that all people are composed of the sum of their parts - that the virtues those who have gone before remain within each of us. After having completed this project, I could not agree more. We are all granted our own adventures to live out, but without the help of others, we could not see these adventures through to their ends.

So, let us learn from our pasts and those who have gone before. Let us dare to continue dreaming and bring these hopes to fruition, remembering all the while that we're the sum of our parts. From the skies above, the world below seems small and its inhabitants insignificant. But so too is the case from the ground, where massive aircrafts - masterpieces of human ingenuity - seem small.