Giving our thanks to those who serve
When Abraham Lincoln, at the urging of the determined magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale, declared the last Thursday of November “a day of Thanksgiving and Praise,” the nation had been embroiled in the Civil War for almost three years. Union forces had recovered from the grim early defeats that marked the beginning of the brutal conflict. Three months before the October 3, 1863, declaration, rebel forces under Robert E. Lee had suffered the decisive defeat of the war at Gettysburg.
The nation was enduring a long crisis, and Lincoln, with his timeless prose, called upon it to pause and celebrate its bountiful blessings. George Will pointed out recently that the Civil War remains our only constitutional crisis.
Today, we are experiencing a period of heightened political discord as the House of Representatives considers impeaching the president for making military aid to Ukraine contingent upon that government investigating President Donald Trump’s political rival, former Vice President Joseph Biden, and his son.
Impeachment proceedings bring daily political clashes and magnify civic discord. But we are not living through a constitutional crisis. Our democratic institutions are working, and for that, we should be grateful this Thanksgiving.
The public hearings conducted by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence should bolster confidence in our liberal values. The witnesses so far as I write this on Thursday morning have included a pageant of dedicated and talented career public servants.
On Nov. 13, Ambassador William Taylor testified on the first day of hearings and dazzled the millions who watched and listened with hours of testimony that exuded both truth and a lifetime of competence. Taylor was an officer in the army in Vietnam. He has served the United States as a diplomat in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Taylor was our ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009, returning to that position earlier this year to replace Marie Yovanovitch.
Taylor and almost all who followed exuded reassuring authority and a firm grasp of what they did and did not know. So did Ambassador Yovanovitch. She has dedicated her adult life to serving the nation. She has served American interests in some of the most chaotic nations in the world. Her biography more than her cool exterior reveals a ferocious advocate for freedom and the dignity of mankind. The attacks on her by malignant forces in Ukraine and the United States confirmed that she is a superb friend of liberty.
In a memorable moment, Yovanovitch cast a searing light on the Trump administration and its supporters in Congress. Asked by a Republican member of the inquiry panel if she agreed that the president, who unleashed abuse of Yovanovitch on Twitter
while she testified, has the right to appoint and remove ambassadors, Yovanovitch agreed. She ended her answer with a question. Why was it necessary for the president to smear her reputation? Her interlocutor declined to answer, noting he was not asking about that. Yovanovitch is a champion of the virtues we celebrate at a time when others reveal their craven interests.
Spare a nod of thanks for Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman in this season of reflection and celebration. His family fled Ukraine when it was enslaved by the Soviet Union. Jews, which the Vindmans are, were targets of unrelenting totalitarian mistreatment. They came to the United States and thrived, as so many immigrants do, such as Trump’s first and third wives. Vindman has devoted his life to military service. He was wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq.
Vindman rose to a position on the National Security Council. His twin brother is a lawyer in the White House.
The Vindmans are a great American story. At his appearance on Monday, Vindman sought to reassure his brave father that his son would not suffer because he was testifying about one of Trump’s calls with the president of Ukraine. Vindman told his father, the committee and the nation, “Dad, [that] I’m sitting here today in the
U.S. Capitol talking to our elected professionals is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry. I will be fine for telling the truth.”
The man and his message provided two more reasons to be grateful this Thanksgiving.