So, Have We Earned It? I Fear Not
By Charles Cole (06/10/04)
Another observance of D-Day has come and gone and I spent the day as has become my fashion – watching the festivities from Normandy, reading a bit of the history of the event, talking to my father who was in England that day awaiting subsequent transport to the continent, and watching the movie “Saving Private Ryan”.
Anyone who has watched that movie cannot help but recall one of the concluding scenes on the bridge. The officer who had led a detail of soldiers to rescue the last surviving member of a literal band of brothers – Captain John Miller (played by Tom Hanks) – enjoins Private Ryan: “James. Earn this!”, referring to the sacrifice of the lives of others on his behalf. I cannot help on this occasion but wonder whether we, the American people, as the intended beneficiaries of the colossal sacrifice made by our forefathers have earned the sacrifice made for us on D-Day.
While we cannot know for sure what they would think, I wonder what the men lying under the marble crosses in the numerous American military cemeteries in Europe would think of the society they died to preserve. Try to imagine their assessment of whether we have earned what they sacrificed 60 years hence.
Do you think they intended that we allow our borders to be routinely violated with total impunity by millions of people annually? How about government sanctioned murder of unborn children in the birth canal less than a month from birth? Perhaps they would have supported removing God from our schools, courthouses and other public buildings, and even from the Pledge of Allegiance? I wonder what their reaction would be at hearing that a Christmas nativity scene is “inappropriate” at Christmas time, or at learning that homosexuals were being permitted to “marry”. I can just picture what might happen, were a “protestor” to burn an American flag in their presence – the flag which draped the caskets in which they were laid to rest!
The aforementioned outrages are the natural outcome of a society’s denigrating the sacrifices of its forebears and eschewing its cultural and historical roots. “Progressives” often suggest that a society should be evaluated by how it treats the worst among us. Perhaps it’s time we countered that by standing up and suggesting that American society should be evaluated by how well we earn the sacrifice of those who gave up their lives and their future for us! Let’s remember: they gave up their lives!
At the 60th anniversary of D-Day President Bush said, “America would do it again for our friends”. Mr. President, before you propose another virtual amnesty for illegal aliens, before you allow your political opponents to obstruct more conservative judges to the federal bench, before you let Ted Kennedy pull the wool over your eyes on issues such as education, and before you commit American forces to defend “friends” such as the French who are again sabotaging our efforts at the U.N., I believe you should return to the American cemetery at Coleville-sur-Mer, spend more than a few perfunctory hours among those who lay there in honored glory, ponder the depth of the sacrifice made by those heroes, and ask yourself, “Have we really earned this sacrifice?”.
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