If a Terminator wanted to get rid of me and Ethics Alarms, all he would have had to do, perhaps, would be to go back to June 2, 1944, and throw himself on the hand grenade that exploded and blew a hole in Jack Marshall, Sr.’s foot that day. The wound kept my dad in an Army hospital when he was scheduled to hit the beaches at Normandy, 7o years ago today. (He recuperated sufficiently to request a return to active duty, and ended up in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge.)
Thus it is that I have special appreciation and reverence for the American, Canadian* and British soldiers who risked, and in many cases lost, their lives winning a crucial battle in a war about freedom and human rights on June 6, 1944, and empathize with all the sons and daughters, and grandsons and grand-daughters, whose chances at existence were ended that day, while mine, by the sheerest luck, was not.
And I find myself wondering, as America retreats from its traditional ideal as the nation that stands up to evil, chaos, persecution and tyranny in the world, and as our government devalues “hero” and “service with honor” to the status of gratuitous application to a soldier who voluntarily abandoned his comrades on the field of battle, if our culture, our young, and our increasingly self-absorbed society would support the equivalent of a Normandy invasion today. If not, the world is in greater peril than it knows.
I’m an optimist, and a firm, though shaken, believer in the unique cultural values of the United States of America. I believe that we are one admirable, wise, courageous leader of character away from getting back on the ennobling course charted by Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy and Reagan.
I just wish that I could see, even faintly, such a leader coming over the horizon. I wish he…or she…would hurry the hell up.
* I stupidly omitted mentioning our Canadian allies when I first posted this, and was properly corrected. No slight intended. My apologies.
Ethics Alarms 
Agreed, Jack – and I don’t see that leader on the horizon, either. I suspect it may be at least partly because most great leaders are flawed in some way, with some past item or items that could limit their electoral chances – especially in this age of tit-for-tat partisan “journalism.”
And I suspect that in part, it’s due to a worrisome lack of understanding of our history and why this nation was established the way that it was. Too many Americans think this nation is supposed to be a democracy. Consider how many people want to abolish the electoral college, which is the only thing standing between us and a popular election of a potential dictator, or how many believe that it’s ridiculous that each state has the same number of senators (personally, I think we should abolish the 17th Amendment; for those who don’t know this, the Senate was originally created to represent the interests of the individual states, while the House was created to represent the interests of the people. The 17th Amendment called for direct election of senators).
Too few Americans understand that the founders recognized democracies as two lions and a zebra voting on what to have for dinner.
I would argue, however, that your question regarding whether the nation would support the equivalent of a Normandy invasion today is probably moot, largely as a result of weapons technology. When the Allies crossed the channel, weapons technology was largely at parity, or close to it. Second, neither the Allies nor the Nazis (yet) possessed weapons systems that could flatten a large area quickly and easily.
The next time we are confronted with a conflict on that scale – and I pray we never are – the battle will be over very, very quickly. And at a far higher cost – to both sides.
Meantime, thank you for the tribute to your father, and to all those who sacrificed so much for the ideals of freedom.
You have a non-trivial typo in the date you gave.
Right.
1945 is on my brain because I’m lecturing on the Nuremberg trials every other night. I was afraid that would happen. Thanks.
We had that leader.
Romney.
He couldn’t get elected.
In a democracy we truly do get the government we deserve.
You forgot the Canadians. The Americans had Omaha and Utah beaches. The Brits had Sword and Gold Beaches. Canadians had Juno Beach.
Also, the French had the French Resistance contingent. Mostly did sabotage behind the German lines. However, thanks for sharing that, Jack. My Dad was Fleet Marines on the Enterprise and my Father-In-Law was busy in Italy that day, so I have no direct connection to the landings, but what brave men we lost on that landing.
Yup. And I’ll add them. Right now.
I’m still a little bitter about some of the French wanting to collect reparations for damage the troops did to their property during the invasion. Ungrateful bastards.
I have a WW II-era French rifle for sale. Never fired, dropped once.
Thanks. I’ll add this to my collection.
Very snide, Joe!! (chuckle)
Bill it to the Germans…
The French are grateful for genuine U.S. sacrifices; that’s why nearly every French urban street corner has a plaque commemorating that G.I. so and so fell near that spot. But on the one hand, the area around Falaise was uninhabitable for months and the French knew that only those who had done that could pass the reparations bill along to the Germans, and on the other hand they knew that the gloves were off in financial matters and no gratitude was deserved; they had seen the U.S.A. in the form of Eisenhower trying to get impoverished French locals to pay for it all with the indignity of occupation money that would have caused inflation in an already ravaged economy and then eventually have been a charge on the French taxpayer. De Gaulle repudiated that immediately, but after that the U.S.A. had no claim to any gratitude in financial matters – and didn’t get any. You should look at the French demand for compensation as a natural and provoked response to being asked to pay for more than their own suffering as well as having to suffer it, adding insult to injury. Eisenhower really, really, got himself some instant bad feeling with that too clever by half move.
Oh, and that other comment’s snide remark about a French rifle never being fired and only dropped once – all the best troops and officers were pocketed in the Maginot Line, like my own uncle, and they wanted to keep on but couldn’t, what with being trapped and being ordered to stand down.
And what with the Maginot line being a totally incompetent, wacky, misguided and bizarre defense mechanism that a reasonably astute 7th grader could have debunked given an hour or so to consider it.
Just a note that I am remembering my grandfather and my (numerous) great uncles who served in WWII. My grandfather served mostly in Northern Africa and Italy, but I had other great uncles who participated in this conflict and the (often overlooked) Pacific conflicts.
Thanks, Beth.
Why, do you think, are the Pacific conflicts less well-publicized and less generally known? The fighting in the Pacific was in many ways more fierce and bloody than the European theater. Is it the lack of a single grand battle, other than Midway? Is it the Nazis were better villains? I don’t get it; never have.
I think you’re right. The Pacific conflicts were messier/uglier and the island-hopping campaigns do not end with defeating the bad guy and releasing prisoners. It ends with a bomb.
While I think Jack and Beth both have good points, I think there’s a lot more to it than that. The European theater was far more accessible to the media than was the Pacific. Stories could be filed faster. Enemy and Allied positions were easier to for media to see and, I daresay, a lot easier to understand;
I don’t know about my parents’ generation but ours spent a lot more time learning the map of Europe than we did the western Pacific. I suspect this is due to the fact that the majority of Americans had some form of European lineage, so there was a naturally greater level of cultural interest in the region and what was happening there. And while the modern progressive cry that everything boils down to racism makes my head explode, the fact that the protagonists in the Pacific were of races and cultures most Americans didn’t understand may well have played into it.
Functionally, the scattered nature of various battles and engagements in the Pacific almost certainly made it easier for the military to control what was being reported – at minimum, by limiting access. In Europe, many reporters were based out of London, a city in which the media wasn’t limited exclusively to talking with military and political leaders and no small number of refugees, spies and other shady characters available as sources. By contrast, much of the Pacific war was battles at sea and on islands, and many of the command centers were either on ships or thousands of miles away from the action.
I believe that the above, taken with the premise that “the news is the first draft of history,” answers Jack’s question. We know a lot more about the war in Europe today because a lot more was known of it back then.
Casualties were high, especially amongst the Marines in the island hopping campaigns. However, from what I have read, MacArthur in his brilliant strategy had much lower casualty rates than in Europe. Fortunately, Japan did not have to be invaded as the cost of American, British, Australian and Japanese lives would have been enormous. I doubt seriously at the time that Tojo and his army high command could have been persuaded that they were fighting a losing fight. I had a friend and mentor who was a corsair pilot in the Pacific in WW2 and he shared that he was enormously relieved that he did not have to be involved in the invasion of Japan.
Well put
I think a large part of it, it simply that the European War looked more like a war we like to fight… Fire Superiority, Maneuver, Open space to combine elaborate tactics and strategy, Break outs and routs, etc…
The Pacific War was the same battle played out over and over… no maneuver, tight spaces, grinding it out in a slugfest…
The sort of fighting best left to the professionals (Marines)
Not gonna be baited into an interservice rivalry debate.
Aw! You’re no fun. 😉
I run into so many Marines online that I’m beginning to think they teach them blogging at Parris Island.
I’m beginning to believe that the root of this problem lies in abolishment of the draft and the requirement that men serve in the armed forces as a draftee or reservist. If they are a legitimate conscientious objector, they could serve in a hospital or some other place. Women could volunteer of course. So we are now stuck with the wussies that currently run our government and snicker at the idea of “Duty, Honor, and Country”.
I served under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. I consider myself very, very fortunate to not have served under the current administration.