Memorial Day this year calls on all Americans with particular significance. It requires us to look back at our past and forward to our future as our nation considers its choices for the next commander in chief.
Just last year we celebrated the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, the deadliest conflict in human history. Americans like Lieutenant Dick Winters of the 101st Airborne parachuted into Normandy 72 years ago, in 1944, in Operation Overlord. In the spring of 1945, American soldiers discovered the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps. After Eisenhower visited Ohrdruf concentration camp, which had been liberated by American troops on April 4, he declared:
“We are told that the American soldier does not know what he is fighting for. Now at least he will know what he is fighting against.”
Over the course of just under four years, more than 16 million American men and women had served in some capacity in the war. Today in 2016, fewer than one million WWII vets are still alive. Just over 400,000 Americans, most of them young, never returned from their duties in World War II.
On Memorial Day, Americans will visit cemeteries such as Arlington in Virginia, as well as many more around the nation. Many Americans who paid the ultimate price, however, are buried overseas. They rest in 24 different cemeteries in 11 different countries.
Throughout its history, Europe has been a blood-soaked continent. Two World Wars scarred the last century. The Napoleonic Wars raged on and off for over 15 years. The Hundred Years’ War between France and England actually lasted for 116 years.
After World War II ended, American servicemen and women stayed in bases across Europe. The Marshall Plan helped to rebuild the shattered economies of postwar Europe. In 1946, Winston Churchill warned of an “Iron Curtain” that had descended on Eastern Europe. NATO was founded in 1949 to confront the challenge of Communism.
In 1989, the Cold War finally ended and the Berlin Wall came down. The defeat of fascism and communism was due in large part to the sacrifice of the American servicemen and women that we honor on Memorial Day.
Since 1945, Europe has enjoyed a period of peace—interrupted only by the breakup of Yugoslavia—that is unprecedented in its history. America as well as Europe have benefitted from this long peace.
Simultaneously, though, Americans have been fighting a war of unprecedented duration. On Sept. 11, 2001, our world suddenly changed. Since autumn of that year, American troops have been engaged in Afghanistan fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban. There are soldiers serving today in Afghanistan who were toddlers when the Twin Towers in New York were struck by hijacked commercial airliners.
Americans in 2016 confront many dangers. In the Middle East, we must face the challenge posed by ruthless ISIS operatives who have waged a war against diverse people in different countries, and even against history itself. The Syrian civil war has claimed over 100,000 lives and has created the worst refugee crisis since World War II. Recent attacks in Paris, Brussels, and San Bernardino remind us that terrorism remains a threat around the world.
This year, Americans will select a new commander in chief. As we go to the polls in November, we should reflect upon the need for sound, mature judgment in all of our leaders, and particularly in our president. Americans must consider that they are choosing an individual who controls the most powerful military in the world and has the power to end life as we know it.
Memorial Day imposes a duty on all Americans to remember the sacrifice of our fallen heroes and to reflect on how best we should steer a course through our dangerous and turbulent world.
Christopher Kelly is the co-author of America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or Been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, and Italy Invades: How Italians Conquered the World. For more information, visit www.americainvades.com and www.italyinvades.com. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of San Jose Inside.
I was pleasantly surprised by this article. It has little in the way of the usual politics.
The world is not a safe place. If America doesn’t exert some control over countries that tend to be a threat to others, and to us, then the world will quickly spin out of control.
That control requires a strong military. There is no alternative. As Malcolm X wrote, power never retreats, except in the face of greater power. America must be that greater power. The alternative is chaos — in a world where the nuclear genie is out of the bottle.
No one likes military action or the threat of war. But the alternative to a strong U.S. military is terrible to contemplate. Small, outlaw countries would then call the shots. We’re almost at that point now.
And the price is always high:
http://tiny.cc/4vgtby
But the alternative is worse. Much worse.
Happy Memorial Day. Let’s take a moment to remember the reason, and to pray for those who stood between us and those who would do us harm.
“Since 1945, Europe has enjoyed a period of peace—interrupted only by the breakup of Yugoslavia—that is unprecedented in its history. America as well as Europe have benefitted from this long peace.”
What about the Korean War? Viet Nam? The Graet War on Terrorism? just ask civlians in Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Kosovo, Afganistan, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon about ‘American Peace’.
Maybe we would not need thge strong military if we practiced empathy with others, not drones, bombs, assassinations, invasions, etc.
How has our assinine froeign policy made us any safer? Every person of ‘collateral damage’ becomes another hater of our policies and maybe a danger.
I have a problem with Memorial Day, not because I reject the idea of honoring those who gave their all in service to this county, but because I think our having a day to commemorate those lost, or, for that matter, a Veterans Day to salute those who served, lets us all off the collective hook for our obligation to honor these men and women in the most honest and ethical manner possible.
Were we as a nation truly committed to remember the sacrifices of those killed in war, and demonstrate our gratitude for all who served, it would be evident in our everyday philosophy about the value, investment, and treatment of our servicemen and women — the nation’s most precious resource. We would make clear to our elected leaders that our defensive forces are too important to be weakened by relaxed standards or policies that serve only political-correctness, demand that their lives be imperiled only in the legitimate defense of our nation’s security, and hold our elected leaders accountable for providing veterans the promised support and quality care.
Were we as a nation to incorporate into our view of the military the appreciation, prudence, and protectiveness we extend to forest trees and fresh water everyday would be a day of remembrance and honor, and the future would produce far fewer dead to remember or maimed to support.