Remembering the Greatest Generation
Over the last year, the so-called “cancel culture” has attempted to erase anything it finds offensive - in other words, damn near everything.
Iconic food brands were eliminated by cowardly corporations. Flags (including the American Betsy Ross flag) and movies (“Gone With The Wind”) were banned. Disney’s Splash Mountain is on the chopping block, and the Washington Redskins are no longer. And countless statues, from Columbus to Lincoln, have been toppled with glee.
But above all, the one statue that makes no sense to graffiti (it was) or remove (local officials were on the cusp of doing so this fall, but were rebuffed by residents) is the 25-foot monument “Unconditional Surrender” in Sarasota, Fla. In dazzling fashion, it depicts the most famous kiss in the world - the Navy sailor in Times Square sweeping a dental assistant off her feet and into his arms amid news that Japan had surrendered.
If people have a problem with Columbus or Stonewall Jackson, so be it. But how on Earth can anyone be offended by a statue depicting the Greatest Generation? After all, the “only” thing they did … was save the world.
Remembering the events of Pearl Harbor, as we did this week, and honoring those who sacrificed so much - be they the armed forces, or those giving unwavering support on the home front - should be a no-brainer for every American. But it isn’t. Fact is, many schools barely touch on World War II, glossing over its monumental impacts in short order. Even worse are social-engineers masquerading as teachers, from grade school to college, who push their revisionist history. Rather than teaching facts, they impart their leftist opinions on our children, often making the United States out to be the bad guy. The result is entire generations who either don’t know the truth about the Second World War, or worse, don’t care.
Pop Quiz: What World War II action killed the most people?
Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Wrong. It was the fire-bombing of Tokyo. But never let truth get in the way of facts.
Those who lived through the war, as well as the generations who endured the Cold War, overwhelmingly believe that dropping the atomic bomb was the right thing to do.
But par for the course, almost half of the whining Millennials demonize America for its decision to do so. And thanks to an ever-increasing number of leftist college professors brainwashing students, that number continues to grow.
In the decades after the war, much was written about the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation. But as they and successive generations continue to depart, their legacy is being tarnished, and possibly forever altered, by naïve Millennials and the agendadriven left.
To help prevent “Greatest Generation” and “sacrifice” from becoming meaningless buzz words, let’s set the record straight by making a bombing run on historically inaccurate mindsets.
1) Everyone has a right to his or her opinion. But that doesn’t entitle you to make up facts and revise history. The truth is the truth; many manipulate it, but it’s never subjective. It is what it is.
2) As mentioned, a big reason for warped conceptions of WW II is because our schools virtually never teach it. It’s great to learn about the Revolutionary War and European history, but not every year. It should be mandated that all eighth-graders learn about both world wars and their aftermaths, followed by more intensive analysis in high school. It’s bad enough we forget much of world history, but losing knowledge of what happened in the WW II, and why, is the surest way to repeat that very darkest of periods.
3) Those disagreeing with the decision to drop the atomic bombs have no historical leg on which to stand.
Many object because they killed so many people, but they ranked behind the fire-bombings in terms of casualties. So, by definition, those folks must also take issue with the conventional bombing campaigns. At that point, all credibility is lost, since bombing is how modern wars are fought. Sure, we could have laid down our arms and sang Kumbaya, but that would have been surrendering the world to the forces of evil.
Second, some are angry because a nuclear arms race commenced. But so what? Nuclear weapons were an inevitability - and not just for us, but our enemies. Therefore, it is a foregone conclusion that America was absolutely correct in pursuing a nuclear program - the “better us than them” strategy. Given the unprecedented atrocities committed by Hitler and Hirohito, both would have used nuclear weapons against America had they beat us to the punch.
Truth is, the nuclear arms race was a mixed blessing. Sure, there remains the possibility that nuclear conflagration could wipe out Planet Earth. Therefore, reducing stockpiles and preventing new nations from obtaining nukes are winning policies. But let’s also not forget that A) the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings remain the only time in 75 years that nuclear weapons were used in anger; B) peaceful nuclear power has been a godsend, especially for the environment; and most important, C) our nuclear arsenal has served as the sentinel of world peace. The threat of nuclear Mutually Assured Destruction has been the principle keeping nations from going too far. As a direct result, we are living in the safest, most peaceful era in human history. That’s pretty damn good.
Bottom line: If 200,000 people had to die to save 2 billion, so be it. America didn’t start the war, but we sure as hell finished it.
4) It’s inarguable that had we not used nuclear weapons, an invasion of Japan was imminent. Resulting casualties would have been unimaginable, with hundreds of thousands, and likely millions, dead - the majority being Japanese. So in no small way, the atomic bombing deaths, while tragic, saved countless Japanese lives.
5) Some professors actually claim that dropping the atomic bomb wasn’t rooted in military strategy, but - of course - racism. Yeah, we nuked Japan not to end the war, but because we didn’t like Japanese people. Such a thought is preposterous, but that line of thinking is influencing our children.
There is another possibility. Maybe the reason that so many Japanese died was because the bombs were dropped…in Japan. And maybe we hit those cities because they were large centers of military industrialization. And maybe, just maybe, it was because Japan attacked the United States first, we were engaged in a full-blown, winner-take-all war, and dropping the bombs would pressure the Japanese people and their leaders to sue for peace. Which, by the way, is exactly what happened.
Incidentally, do these leftists say the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because they hated white people? Of course not, since liberal “logic” is a one-way street. And naturally, they never allow discussion on what would have been inevitable - San Francisco or Washington getting nuked, had we abandoned our nuclear ambitions on “moral” grounds and ceded the atomic bomb to our adversaries.
6) The United States was blessed with protected borders, so a German or Japanese invasion was unlikely. But had either adversary developed nuclear weapons first, they would have held all the cards by being able to demand terms without concessions. And at that point, we’d have to learn to speak German and Japanese.
Must one agree with everything done by America’s leaders in World War II? Of course not. From Japanese internment camps, to harassment of Italian Americans, to FDR not informing the American people of Hitler’s Final Solution, numerous things could have been handled better.
But there’s a hell of a lot more we did right. We treated prisoners of war with the highest standards of care. We allowed our adversaries to maintain dignity and self-respect upon surrender. We gave favorable terms to our defeated foes, and poured billions into reconstructing Germany, Italy and Japan (as well as allied nations) - so much so that we put ourselves at a disadvantage by building them state-of-the-art factories while America’s industrial and physical infrastructure remained outdated. And of course, we gave them blanket protection against the forces of communism that remains in place to this day. The left’s ploy of applying today’s “modern sensibilities” to actions of the past - which they use to politicize history - is more dangerous than war.
In large part because of the Great
est Generation, today’s Millennials have never experienced war. The resulting softness has fostered a misplaced sense of entitlement where they demonize their own country on social media while sipping lattes and munching avocado beansprout sandwiches.
Once we allow history to be rewritten to satisfy the whims of the “offended,” it is difficult to turn back. There’s not a civilization in history that has not committed transgressions that, by today’s standards, appall us. Be they Romans, Jews, Greeks, Chinese, Native Americans, Europeans, Africans and yes, Americans, no peoples have been perfect. But more than any other country, America has shown a remarkable resilience in admitting and rectifying its mistakes. That’s why erasing history - rather than trying to understand and learn from it - is insanity.
Both of my grandfathers served in the United States Navy during WWII. I owe it to them, as we all owe the Greatest Generation, to stand proud about how America conducted itself during that struggle. Anything less, and their sacrifices will have been in vain.
No one is perfect, but the Greatest Generation comes close. God bless them - for everything.