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.

America didn’t start the war, but we sure as hell finished it.

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.

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.

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 Americans 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-theart 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 Greatest 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.

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.