There is a new Ken Burns documentary titled The War. In the clip I just saw moments ago, Burns said, World War II “is wrapped in a bloodless, gallant myth. We can’t leave it that way.”
I beg to differ on one very important point.
Those young men who sailed across all the Pacific on aircraft carriers to face a continual stream of suicide bombers, then known as insane Kamikazes…
Those men who landed in the scorching tropics in order to stop that raging military monster with its Rising Sun Flags and setting sun’s Darkness...
Those young men who sailed across the Atlantic to land on the European continent headed for Dresdon, Dunkirk, Normandy, Tunisia, Palermo, Sicily to put an end to that continent’s marching machines of violence...
All of them did that bloody, gut wrenching work to stop Harm in his tracks.
Make no mistake. Wrapping that effort in gallantry is no myth.
Their gallantry is fact.
To the soldier, battle has no mercy. Doing battle’s requirements has no sweetness. It doesn’t feel gallant, it pulls at the gut. Its memory can trigger tears like the tropics spur sweat. In the middle, you wonder where in that blood does sweetness survive.
Yet prior to Courage arriving on both fronts in that war-- rape, maiming, torture, the vicious killing of children, women, and men of courage, looting, theft and ethnic attacks were happening en masse across both oceans. Kindness, peace, and democracy were losing on a grand scale.
Yet our gallant men left peaceful communities behind to meet that Evil face to face, to stop it.
Thank God, they did.
I, you, forever know their courage and fortitude was, no question, gallant. There is no doubt, girls who were saved from such a similar fate will call them gallant. No doubt those rescued from prison camps, will call them gallant. The list of those with gratitude can go on ad infinitum, as Evil's agents would have done had not our soldiers arrived on those bloody shores.
I will forever wrap their memory and my arms of gratitude around their gallantry and share their family’s tears of sorrow, even today.
The effort of those soldiers allow you and I, Europeans, and parts of Asia to live in the luxuries of peace now taken for granted – we can sprinkle our lawns and enjoy a lazy Saturday, enjoy a round of golf on the greens or a round of beer at a bar, enjoy a latte or sip a tea, cast a fishing line or cast a vote, find success or find some trouble, catch a girl’s heart or fall in love with a hero, to smile at a child’s laughter or cry peacefully of the sorrows in life, and so much more.
Yet, reluctantly, I admit that Burns’ comment reminds me that those young men and their families in the 1940’s sacrificed their lives and loved ones so that a bunch of Americans today can ignore History 101 and be foolish enough to believe that “The War” in which upwards of 60 million people died, was bloodless.
That is roughly 35,000 people killed a day, for five years straight. One soldier I heard interviewed a number of years ago remembered vividly that there was so much blood on the road in Europe that he and his fellow men would slip and fall while walking. They could hardly stand upright as they marched head on into the enemy. Hardly bloodless. Burns is right, ignorance regarding that sacrifice cannot be left unattended.
Regarding those individuals who aren’t grateful and fully aware of their indebtedness to the bloody sacrifice of those men of World War II, the only myth here is their claim to be an American -- certainly they are fully ignorant to freedom’s never ending battle against its aggressors.
Most troublesome, they are certainly unaware that the agents of destruction seep into every culture while those who forget history are sipping their latte and sneering at those doing that same painful, gritty, bloody work today on their behalf.
So I close with Love to the Gallant. I share your sorrow, your losses and will always wrap my arms of gratitude around you and your loved ones. Your courage and your painful sacrifice of life and blood make this world safe for the smiling lovable children we welcome into the world. You have my heart’s deepest understanding, its hope and its love.
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