In November
1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11 as Armistice
Day, commemorating the end of hostilities in "the war to
end all wars." That was a lofty prediction but one that history
would soon prove to be wishful thinking. The Great War became
known as World War I when World War II followed just a generation
later. Our military death toll multiplied fourfold, with more
than 400,000 giving their lives in World War II. In 1954, Armistice
Day became Veterans' Day, honoring American veterans of all wars.
As a free
and tolerant nation we accommodate pacifists and respect their
right to oppose war on religious grounds, granting them exemption
from combat service. But we don't honor them, nor should we. As
George Orwell once noted, "To abjure violence is a luxury
which a delicate few enjoy only because others stand ready to
do violence in their behalf." So U.S. Marines died on Iwo
Jima so that pacifists could sing Kumbaya in safety. Warriors
are essential; pacifists are a luxury.
A couple
of weeks ago, much was made by anti-war activists and their media
sympathizers of the 2,000th American military death in Iraq over
the last two and a half years. Our losses on Iwo Jima were 22,000
wounded and 6,821 killed in action in just five weeks. Every one
of those deaths was a personal tragedy and a national loss. But
the first was no more or less honorable or significant than the
last - or the 2,000th.
About 3,000
Americans were slaughtered on Sept. 11, 2001, in a matter of hours.
Many more Americans - military and civilian - will likely be killed
over who knows how many more years in this latest world war being
waged against civilized society and modernity by Islamofascist
terrorists. How should we be influenced by the body count? At
what number should we raise the white flag and surrender - and
to whom? And what would be the terms of that surrender?
This is no
time to waver in our resolve. To do so would encourage our enemy
and dishonor those who have fought and died in our behalf. We
need to celebrate our heroes, not our defeatists. One of those
heroes was Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur. In honor of Veterans'
Day, I like to recall his May 12, 1962, farewell address to the
cadets at West Point. The general's health was failing; he would
die two years later. But his words were clear, powerful and inspiring.
This was his eloquent closing passage: "You are the leaven
which binds together the entire fabric of our national system
of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the
nation's destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.
The long gray line has never failed us.
"Were
you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki,
in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses thundering
those magic words: Duty, Honor, Country.
"This
does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier,
above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and
bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears
ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers:
'Only the dead have seen the end of war.'
"The
shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days
of old have vanished, tone and tint; they have gone glimmering
through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of
wondrous beauty, watered by tears, and coaxed and caressed by
the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ears,
for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far
drums beating the long roll. In my dreams I hear again the crash
of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter
of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory, always I
come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty,
Honor, Country.
"Today
marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that
when I cross the river my last conscious thoughts will be of The
Corps, and The Corps, and The Corps. I bid you farewell."
Mike Rosen's radio show airs
daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA.
