May 2011 Articles

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Just Rambling May 2011

Just Rambling: For the month of May, I asked our son, John Cody Bennett, to write the “Just Rambling” for me. A tribute to our nation and our military.
Each year in May, Americans across the nation celebrate Memorial Day, a federal holiday commemorating the men and women who have lost their lives serving in the Armed Forces of the United States. Formerly known as Decoration Day, the holiday was established in the aftermath of the Civil War, America’s most poisonous and destructive conflict, in which over 620,000 soldiers died. In the last century and a half, Americans have fought and died in two World Wars, as well as in countless smaller conflicts the world over. American arms have defeated both fascism in Europe and imperialism in Japan, have contained Cold War Communism in Korea and Vietnam, and continue even now to battle Islamic terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Historians and commentators have and will continue to debate both the wisdom and the handling of some of these wars, and that is a good thing. What is not up for debate, however, is the valor of the American soldier who puts his or her life on the line for the sake of all Americans, as a sacrifice for the good of their fellow citizens. As Memorial Day fast approaches, it is precisely these individuals whom we must honor.
Particularly important to remember are our oldest veterans, namely those of the World War II generation. World War II was one of the most important conflicts in the history of our country----it lasted six years, resulted in a total of 40 to 70 million deaths worldwide, and established the United States as the world’s dominant military and economic power. Even today, almost 70 years since the attack on Pearl Harbor, most Americans are still personally acquainted with at least one veteran of the war. This generation, commonly referred to as “the Greatest Generation,” holds a special place in American history for their patriotism, and for their unfaltering defense of their country in the face of terror and hardship unimaginable to most people today.
With these thoughts in mind, I recently visited America’s National World War II Museum in New Orleans, erected to honor the brave service of these veterans. Visitors to this museum will learn a great deal about American participation in both the European and Pacific theaters of the Second World War, with a particular emphasis on the D-Day invasion of Normandy. Entering the museum, I followed the stairs to exhibits illuminating for visitors the causes of the war, then continued on through rooms dedicated to each of the major battles of World War II. I watched films about Midway and the D-Day invasion, walked past display cases filled with 1940’s posters, military uniforms, and weapons, and traced the war’s chronology through the many informative signs chronicling the dates of each battle. I lingered longest in the sections on the Battle of the Bulge and on McArthur’s invasion of the Philippines, the two campaigns in which my grandfathers had once participated, sitting alone amongst the exhibits and striving to imagine all they had seen. Though I will never be able to fully comprehend the hardships they faced as young soldiers, alone and abroad, risking their lives far-removed from their families and all they had ever known, my time in the World War II Museum certainly deepened my appreciation for their sacrifice. My visit was one of quiet reflection, a somber communion with our nation’s past, and as I left the museum alone, it was as if the weight of my grandparents’ many stories traveled with me. During my drive home, I did not speak or turn on the radio, for I was too fully absorbed in thoughts about my grandfathers and about the hardships their generation faced long ago, in a time that exists now only in memory.
I only mention my visit to the World War II Museum now, because it illuminates for me precisely why we as Americans should always observe Memorial Day and reflect each year on its importance. It is not merely a holiday signaling the beginning of summer, nor is it simply a time to gather together for family barbecues. Rather, it is a day that reminds us of our sacred duty to remember the struggles of our forefathers and to honor the sacrifices they endured so that each of us might be free. Just as both my grandfathers traveled thousands of miles across this earth to defend their homes and families, so have Americans down through the generations fought and died to pass liberty on to their successors. Beginning with the Founding generation, who defied British rule on pain of death, generations of Americans have sacrificed themselves on the altar of liberty in defense of what the Declaration of Independence calls those “inalienable rights” bequeathed by God to all men and women everywhere, regardless of race, religion, or nationality. Without the sacrifices of our mothers and fathers, of our grandfathers and grandmothers, of our great-grandfathers and on farther back into obscurity, I am certain that we in America of 2011 would be less free today. To validate that sacrifice, we as Americans must strive to be members of that “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” that President Dwight Eisenhower once claimed was essential to the preservation of liberty in the United States. We must be willing to confront without fear the difficult and long-term problems our nation faces, even when they seem insurmountable. Likewise, we must be capable of criticizing our government and elected leaders, but must also display a readiness to offer our own ideas, a willingness to work together with those whom we disagree, and an understanding that we must from time to time accept compromised solutions to our common problems. Most importantly, though, we must be willing like our ancestors before us to sacrifice, both for future generations and for the cause of liberty, and to never shrink from the struggles that must be endured to preserve America and its traditions of liberty and democracy. It is for these ideals that our forefathers once fought, for these ideals that men and women today in Iraq and Afghanistan bleed and die. Today, let us make sure we respect their sacrifice. Let us make sure that we earn it. Writer: John Cody Bennett