Platanides

This book follows the life, experiences, and Christian Faith of a young boy born in Asia Minor in 1908; how he and his family managed to escape the Genocide of the Greek and Armenian Christians at the hands of Kamel Ataturk on September 13, 1922; their lives as refugees of genocide; how these events and events of World War II on the Island of Crete Greece affected them and their descendants; and the relationship between that boy, in his adult years, and his son, the author. The book deals with life's storms that the boy and his son experience how their Faith, in particularly as practiced in their everyday lives, effected, and straighten them so that they could move through the storms of life and emerge from the eye of those storms, remaining strong and committed in their Faith. There is a strake comparison of life under the oppression of Muslim radicals seeking to eliminate Christianity; life under the control of the Nazi and Gustoso tyranny; and life under the Constitution of the United States where we are guaranteed freedom of religion, speech, choice, and the other rights granted Citizens of these United States of America. The author warns future generations do not overlook the price paid for these freedoms; and that, if ignored, the suppression, tyranny and genocide that was suffered by our forefathers, which still exists in other parts of the world, can be experienced again by us, even here, in the United States of America. The author is the first generation born of a survivor of Genocide in Asia Minor by the radical Muslim troops of Kamal Ataturk in September 1922. His father and mother, following their Greek Orthodox Faith, raised him in the teachings and traditions of the Greek Orthodox Church. Born in New York and raised in Folly Beach, South Carolina and Coral Gables, Florida, he graduated from Coral Gables High School and Florida State University and then served in the US Navy. He engaged in the business of acquiring troubled companies, restructuring, and reselling these companies. By way of his upbringing and using the profits he earned from these business activities, he invested these funds in good works, including the good works of his Faith and Christian beliefs. In the time that he has been home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he questioned if his children and the children of his siblings and cousins really understood the greatness of the freedoms we enjoy in the United States. If they understood how fragile the existence of these freedoms is; the sacrifices of life and blood made by many to preserve these freedoms and this county; and if they even knew what his father and many others went through to give him and all of them the opportunity to have religious freedom so we could openly live our Orthodox Christian Faith. To preserve the history of this heritage he undertook writing this book.