Remembering Who We Have Been

World War II. The last great war where the future of the world was truly at stake. It was a war where...

• Numbers were beyond staggering.
• Destructiveness was beyond catastrophic.
• Death was beyond horrific.
• Inhumanity reigned as ideology ran rampant all over the globe-
• Germany and Italy; Japan and the Soviet Union.

It was probably the only time in world history where everything was literally up for grabs. The use of technology and human evil may have never been so widespread and dangerous

Seventy-five years will soon have passed.
Most soldiers are gone and memories are fading.

• Would we have believed that swastikas would again be flying- this time in the streets of the United States?

• Would we have guessed that white supremacy, as an ideology, would be in vogue among some?

• Would we have thought that the nation that helped rebuild its enemies from the ground up would be turning inward and away from compassion for the hurting and the refugee?

Seventy-five years will soon have passed. Memories only last so long. What was for me the greatest and most important of wars has been lost to shadows. Its message and clarion call for hope is now a fading echo. We have now had seventy-five years of more wars with often uncertain objectives and misleading leadership. We have become cynical. The citizen soldiers and bands of brothers of World War II are now too many generations behind us. We, their children, are now older than many of them were ever able to be. Their grandchildren and great-grandchildren have little comprehension of the immense sacrifice our nation was willing to take.

We must never forget…

• That one of the brightest and most civilized of nations could descend in a few short years into monstrous and hateful acts…
• That the dehumanizing of other humans led to the most widespread mass slaughter in history…
• That the last great free nations on earth at the time, the United States and Great Britain, rallied in the face of the unthinkable…
• That the only free superpower of its day sent it citizens thousands of miles to rescue those who were trapped in evil…
• That these men and women returned home and gave us freedom and opportunity beyond any that average citizens had ever been able to access.

On this Memorial Day when we in this country are in conflict and uncertainty and division in ways very seldom before experienced, let us not forget what we have done and what we have stood for.

We must never forget who we are and what we can be. It is why they fought and died.

Never forget. Ever.