Men like my Uncle were heroes, but they did not brag about it. They stormed Normandy, jumped out of planes a bridge too far, served in POW camps, and then prepared to ship to the Pacific. Sometimes the same man did all of those things in the same War.
Because of these men and millions like them from the Allies, we do not face a Nazi dominated Europe. Millions of Jewish people are alive that would be dead. Millions of “useless eaters” are contributing to culture and our lives that would have been murdered. Western Europe experienced decades of relative peace and freedom, though Eastern Europe suffered under the atheistic reign of terror from Moscow. In a world with “two powers,” the dictatorship of the proletariat could not defeat the Christian social democratic parties of the West. Free Europe turned her back on atheistic Communism and the Cold War was won.
But none of this relatively good news had to happen.
The Nazi regime had control of much of Europe and only the madness of Hitler starting a two front war with the Soviet Union and declaring war on the United States after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor saved us. What if Hitler had sent Rommel the tanks from the Eastern Front and allowed him to swing from Egypt through Iraq toward India? What if Hitler had staved off war with the United States until Japan had broken Britain in places like Singapore while Rommel became the new Viceroy of India?
We shall never know, because God be praised, Hitler’s demons drove him to a suicidal attack on Russia with Britain still in possession of her island, an aircraft carrier off the coast of Europe. Churchill roused the Empire to one last moment of greatness, destroying it forever, and the United States joined with the Soviet Union in crushing the Nazi horror in a great nutcracker from the West and the East.
The United States was not a perfect country: we had segregation and much social injustice. Compared to the Nazi regime, however, we stood on the side of the angels. The Civil Rights movement could come to us (thank God) twenty-years later partly because of what we learned from World War II. Racism and theories about blood were forever discredited by Himmler’s bloody camps and Hitler’s ravings. The racist “right” was sent to oblivion and soon even Wallace would not do what “had to be done” to maintain segregation. Partly this was due to the lessons of the fall of Nazism.
The Allies were far from perfect either. Britain was a world power based on a colonial regime of mixed moral rectitude. The Soviet Union was not, quite, as bad as Hitler, lacking his urge or capacity for rapid expansion, but murdered countless more innocents over time. And yet the imperfect West, Christendom in Churchill’s language, beat Hitler first as it had to do and then pierced the iron curtain. Saint John Paul the Great had the moral clarity, Ronald Reagan the arms buildup, and Maggie Thatcher all the courage Europe needed to win the second fight.
All because the greatest generation answered the call.
I wonder if my generation would have done the same. I doubt it. The entire nation had to suffer to stop Hitler and the Empire of Japan and the nation mobilized. One battle would cost us more than some of our more recent (much protested wars).
But today is not the day to argue how awful pacifism would have been at that moment, or selfishness, or the foolish moral equivalency that would compare segregated drinking fountains to Auschwitz. We did what was right and to the men and women still alive goes the thanks of a grateful nation. As Frank Capra put it, we worked and we prayed. And to those who believe that it is a new idea to ask God for victory as if it is the product of some recent Republican theocratic urge with delusions about the Constitution, I end with what Franklin Roosevelt prayed at the time when the war in Europe hung in the balance:
My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.
And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:
Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.
They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.
For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.
And for us at home – fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas – whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them – help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.
Give us strength, too – strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
Thy will be done, Almighty God.
Amen.
Amen and Amen. God save the Republic and our President Barack Obama in the days to come.
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