My Dad made the invasion.
The one that happened in 1944.
The one that stopped the Germans and
liberated France and a lot of other places whose citizens seemed
to have forgotten who was there to help when no one else came. I
can’t remember if he was on Omaha or Utah beach. He never said
too much about where he was and what he saw. In rare moments,
when I was a kid, he would haul out his medals and tell me funny
stories mainly about pranks and jokes his men played on each
other. He didn’t talk about the other stuff. After the war was
over he, along with a lot of other Americans came home and went
to work. He paid his taxes, paid his bills, smoked
cigarettes a lot, made his way through life and then died.
I can only remember taking one vacation with him. He didn’t
laugh a lot. I can’t remember ever sitting down and just talking
to him about life in general.
He was a quiet, silent type of
person. I don’t recall him blaming anyone but himself for
his misfortunes in life. He didn’t think the government ‘owed’
him anything. He knew that smoking was bad for him and yet he
didn’t think of suing the tobacco companies for his choices.
In short, he was just an average American who got yanked up by a
war he didn’t start and was sent over to some foreign country
for their defense and then came home. There were millions more
just like him out there.
Somewhere, along the way we seem to
have lost our way and have forgotten these brave, silent men and
women. Somewhere, along the way we have changed the rules of
fair play.
Some of us have made the rapper…
whose words of rape, robbery, murder and mayhem…the song of the
day.
Some of us look and admire the film
star who; making his or her living by imitating reality, heroes
in our eyes because they can afford to make trips to the camps
of our sworn enemies. Then they denounce the very country that
allowed them to have their freedom in the first place. Some of
us listen to that film or rock star de jour who may have a high
school education take advantage of their popularity and espouse
theory on economic and affairs of state they know nothing about.
Then some of us swoon over these ‘profound statements’ spoken by
the exalted ones. Words neither of their making nor in a lot of
cases even capable of being understood by their speaker. These
same people couldn’t string two sentences together without the
aid of a publicist or someone to write their dialogs each day.
If you can’t explain it, don’t say it. Because you are in a
medium that imitates life doesn’t mean you understand it…or
live it.
Some of us call a television
journalist who poses for smiling publicity photographs with the
leader of the nation that has sworn to destroy our way of
life…courageous.
As a nation we have allowed the
evolution of some parts of television to deteriorate to the
point where the language is so foul and crude that were you to
eliminate the four letter obscenities the program would be
virtually silent. Yet some of these programs are the ones which
receive the highest awards the entertainment industry can hand
out.
I wonder how our forefathers would
have viewed the current rash of so-called ‘reality’ shows in
which we encourage and yes, pay large sums of money for out of
marriage relationships? I hate to tell these people, but
survival isn’t a television program. It’s some poor shmuck
working on some assembly line for twenty-five years so his kids
can have a home and go to college. Try making that into a
program.
While we’re at it why don’t we
eliminate the word “God’ from our Constitution, Bill of Rights
and the Declaration of Independence. The word is in there, as it
is in our Pledge of Allegiance. We can’t allow anything like God
to stand in our way, can we? Some of us are working very hard to
take this word out of those documents.
Some of us think that corporate
greed; theft and embezzlement are all good virtues, unless it
happens to be in one of the companies we’re invested with. ”To
hell with morality, what kind of profit is forecasted in the
next quarter?” Little wonder the barons of Enron and WorldCom
were confused and encouraged.
Some of us think it is wrong to own
guns but ok to hire bodyguards to protect us. We need it, you
don’t. We’re ‘special’… you aren’t.
Some of us want to abolish the death
penalty and prison. We shouldn’t lock those poor people up just
because they killed someone or maimed someone or stole
someone’s’ life savings. No, we shouldn’t traumatize those
individuals…but we forget the victims. We’ll spend $40,000-
$50,000 each year to keep someone in prison, but we’ll allow the
victim to go it alone and be forced to live off of the resources
of their families or church. Prisoners get better medical
benefits and healthcare than do a lot of the persons they have
harmed. Some of us think it isn’t enough and they should have
more…lots more.
We’ll allow books to be published,
television programs to be made and movies to be filmed about the
glamour of crime and it’s participants, but no money finds it’s
way into the hands of those most affected by violence. We
glorify criminals and hold them up in high esteem. We denounce
whistle blowers and so called …’do-gooders’. They have fallen
out of style. We make entire television series about the
beautiful people who make their living from crime. When’s the
last time you saw a series about a plumber or an accountant?
But, you know we need plumbers and
accountants. They may not have fancy houses or fly into
Hollywood openings wearing Versace suits but when your toilet
stops up, you don’t call some Academy Award, Tony or Grammy
winner, do you?
No, you don’t…you know why?
Because most of these people are the
quiet, silent folks like my Dad was.
They went to faraway places like
France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy so that we could have some
freedom in this country. They didn’t ask to go. They went
because it was the right thing to do. They fought and died to
make this world a free place to live in. They fought and died to
allow “Some folks” to do as they do in our country.
My Dad never talked about the dead
friends he left. He could never look at a photograph of the
cemetery at Normandy without his eyes tearing up.
He didn’t consider himself a hero.
He thought the ones who didn’t make it back were the heroes.
He was proud of what he fought for
and for what it achieved.
I wonder if he’d be so proud now?
Truth to tell, I’m kind of glad he
isn’t here to see what “Some of us” have caused to happen.
God Bless this County and our men
and women helping to keep us free…wherever you are.
