World War II has been called ““The Good War.’’ But there is nothing good about war for those who have known the horror of battle. Only causes can be good. And in this war, millions of servicemen like myself found a cause to justify the greatest losses.
At 20 years old, I had never traveled much beyond my parents’ home in Russell, Kans. I marched off to war knowing we were fighting against aggression in Europe and Asia. In time I came to learn we were fighting against evil. Brave young Americans like the ones in my company fought until the last town was liberated. We fought until the last prison camp was emptied of its gaunt survivors and the last death camp was opened to reveal unimaginable crimes.
Although I did not fully understand it, I was fighting for another cause as well–to establish a new place for America in the world. On remote, foreign battlefields, our nation renewed its confidence and found its mission. It was a mission unique in human history and uniquely American in its idealism: to influence without conquest and to hold democratic ideals in sacred trust while many people waited in captivity.
We stayed true to that mission long after the war ended. As Winston Churchill stated, America stood at the ““summit of the world.’’ And yet we asked for no reparations or tribute. Rather we helped our enemies rebuild and we defended them against ideology’s lingering threat until this very decade. Today the freedom America championed is the standard of civilization. At the close of history’s most brutal century, America’s values have triumphed–not through force but through example.
That American idealism and abundance inspired a generation of survivors and their children. It transcended old hatreds and divisions and illuminated the universal aspirations of people regardless of nationality. At home in Russell, we marveled at what Americans from so many different backgrounds can accomplish when we stand together in a just and common cause.
Today, the evidence of war is gone. The meadow in Italy where I fought is all but unrecognizable. If one visits other battlegrounds now you’ll likely find tranquil farmland, quiet villages and sandy shores where war is a distant memory. In cities such as London and Berlin, Tokyo and Moscow, there are still a few scars of war. But in each nation touched by that conflict, you’ll see the monuments erected to pay tribute to the memory of fallen countrymen. All these countries have their solemn memorials so that courageous sons and daughters, fathers and mothers will live on as glorious ancestors and coming generations will not forget the wrenching experience of war and risk its repetition. And all have marked the war with national memorials except the United States.
Why the oversight? One reason is that as Americans we do not dwell upon our past. Our symbols serve contemporary purposes. Our national monuments are not cold mausoleums; they are dynamic. The power of our memorials comes from the people who act out their hopes and ideals every day in these grand settings. Flowers placed at the base of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial speak more eloquently of America’s bitter struggles and unfulfilled promises than engraved stones by themselves.
Yet no such setting serves as backdrop for World War II’s unrealized ideals. Where is the forum for future generations to rally against imperialism and genocide? Where is the platform for America’s children to speak out for freedom, democracy and human decency? These issues remain unresolved, and a review of history teaches us that the forces of evil are never fully vanquished. We need a reminder that just men and women can prevail.
Two years ago President Clinton dedicated the site of the National World War II Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., between the memorials that stand witness to the formation of this country’s guiding principles: the Washington Monument, representing the American Revolution, which created our nation, and the Lincoln Memorial, representing the Civil War, which preserved our nation. These historic watersheds taught us that democracy can endure only if we are committed to its defense.
World War II is one of those rare events of history that look even larger from a distance. For those of us who served, we did not see the big picture; we saw the small struggles. We did not hear the call of history; we heard the voices of friends. Voices that still haunt and comfort the memory of the war’s veterans. Those voices were confident and they were fearful and all too frequently they ended in a moment, in a place far from home. Like all veterans of that time I can hear these voices as if it were yesterday, frozen in time by the intensity of the experience we shared.
But it was not yesterday; it was half a century ago. And in another 50 years, on another Veterans Day anniversary, there will be no one left who heard those voices. It is important that we remember the voices and deeds of those young men and women who liberated whole continents from tyranny and who willingly died for a future they would never see.
In World War II the spirit of America, in home-front factories and on distant battlefields, saved the world. It is a spirit our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines carried to victory, and sometimes carried into eternity. We owe them a debt. We repay it with a pledge: to preserve their memory against the tide of time.
