By Tom Burke / Herald Columnist
On May 7 it will be 81 years since World War II ended in Europe; Aug. 15 for the end in the Pacific. Over 16 million Americans served; 400,000 died; and 670,000 were wounded.
Today, there are less than 50,000 veterans still alive.
And they remember.
They remember fighting in North Africa and being beaten at Kasserine Pass.
They remember battling up the boot of Italy in cold winter mud; the death-swept beaches of Normandy; the 101st Airborne surrounded in the snow at Bastogne; and crossing the Rhine into Germany at the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen.
And they remember the islands of the Pacific; from Midway to Peleliu to Okinawa.
Where they fought to keep us free. Where they fought to defeat fascism. And where they fought for their buddies, sharing a foxhole, or behind a .50-caliber machine gun in a B-17, or a 5-inch naval gun in the turret of a cruiser struggling in the killing zone of Iron Bottom Sound.
And through the 7,600 islands of the Philippine archipelago. Through the jungle and swamp. Through the enemy infested water and rain forest. They fought their campaign of liberation.
So who remembers the names of the beaches and towns of the islands to be taken?
Who?
Those who were there: On Mindanao and Mindoro. On Penay and Sibutu. Balabac and Palawan. Samar and Zamboanga.
Who remembers the names? Those who fought there. Those who survived there.
And who, in later wars, remembers Heartbreak Ridge and Frozen Chosin? Khe Shan, Ia Drang, LZ Albany, or Dak To? Who remembers 73 Easting and the Battle of Medina Ridge? Fallujah, Mosul, Sadr City, and Ramadi? Who remembers the names?
Those who bled there. Those who died there.
And how do we repay them?
Poorly.
Masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis, New Orleans, and Washington, D.C.; and in Los Angles and Chicago who act no differently than Nazi Germany’s Gestapo, Hitler’s Brownshirts, or Japan’s Kempeitai acted more than 80 years ago.
“Show me your papers,” they said then and they say now.
Warrantless home invasions. Full military gear. Tear gas in the streets trying to stamp out First Amendment protected speech and freedom of assembly. Extra-judicial murder in the suburbs and on the high seas.
American citizens arrested or detained on the whim of an ICE agent or some boogered-up data base.
Persecution and prosecution of the president’s political enemies by the “Justice” Department.
And “No comment,” from the White House, Pentagon, and Homeland Security no matter what they’re asked.
Is this how we repay those who bled and died for our freedom?
This is how Trump repays them; by trampling on their rights; by asking them to obey illegal orders; and by cutting off their benefits and deporting veterans who’s skin is brown or black or yellow.
Thomas Paine famously wrote in “The American Crisis,” “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Gentle reader, it’s not just our souls that are being tried.
It is our patience. Our forbearance. Our adherence to the law that is being tried.
Protesters are showing up with whistles while Trump’s militarized police force shows up with guns.
I greatly fear that before long, as Trump keeps raising the ante and sinking to new lows, it will go beyond whistles and signs and cell phone cameras.
Right now, it’s the courts that give us hope democracy will endure. Right now, it’s courageous legislators, local officials and protesters who give us hope that all the men and women who have died, lost limbs, or suffered debilitating mental anguish have not died or suffered in vain.
Right now it’s hope that the mid-term elections in November will turn the ship of state back toward a democratic course it has steered these 250 years.
But will these things save us if Trump goes too far? When Trump goes too far? When will the next Renee Good or Alex Pretti be murdered? Will Trump outlaw mail-in voting and send ICE to menace voters are polling stations? Will Trump go beyond gerrymandering and again send a mob to overturn an election?
And then, if he does the things he’s threatened, will people say, “Enough!” and take to the streets in opposition, to defend the Constitution, and refuse to stand by and allow our birthright to be stripped to salve the ego of a craven, lying coward?
Will they allow him and his family to steal millions from the public weal? Will the citizens of this nation allow a coterie of enablers to steal even more, to dismantle democracy even further; and to, yes, kill even more to enrich themselves and garner more and more power to satisfy their lust for control?
Sweet Jesus, I have one grandson choosing a college, another playing high school soccer; a granddaughter practicing trombone and playing flag football while another wants to be a veterinarian.
What is in the future for these children?
A country where a despot rules? An oligarchy where the rich get richer and the poor do without health care? A nation cowed into silence fearing a knock at the door and an ICE agent with gun drawn saying, “Show me your papers.”
I’ve sometime wondered what it was like to be a Jew in Germany on Kristallnacht as the SA committed murder and practiced terror in Hitler’s name.
If I lived in Minneapolis I’d know what that terror was like. If I lived in Chicago I’d know. If I lived in Los Angles I’d know. If I lived in New Orleans I’d know. If I lived in D.C. I’d know. And I’d remember.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, from his epic masterpiece “Faust,” written in the early 1800s warned us:
Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence
The last result of wisdom stamps it true;
He only earns his freedom and existence;
Who daily conquers them anew.
Stay strong. Resist.
Tom Burke’s email address is t.burke.column@gmail.com.
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