Channeling My Father On Today's America

 

I am 75 years old and, as a reminder to those of my generation and a history lesson to those that have come after us “baby boomers,” I have a story to tell.  Before long, we will be the only living link to the “Greatest Generation” and, in due time (less time than I like to think about), we will be gone as well and won’t be able to bear witness to this story.

I am the son of a family with honorable military service to the United States.  My father, born in 1918, served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1945, most of that time in the European Theater of WWII.  Along with many men and women at the time, he enlisted in the Navy immediately after Pearl Harbor.  He was not accepted because of his vision and then enlisted in the Army before being rejected for the same reason.  Of course, it wasn’t long before he was drafted into the Army (and, ironically, shortly after called up by the Navy) and he was off to basic training and three-plus years in Europe with the Army Engineers, initially building airfields in Scotland and England.  He then was involved in the invasion of Utah Beach in France, arriving with the engineers on June 7, 1944.  Over the next year, they went across France building airfields and bridges as the Allies made their advance to Nazi Germany.

My mother’s older brother, who was in service even before Pearl Harbor, after marrying, was sent to Europe with the Army.  He died at the Battle of the Bulge after being wounded twice before and sent back to the lines.  He was awarded two Bronze Stars.  He had no children and his wife never remarried.  I, of course, never had the pleasure and honor to meet him but loved hearing my mother talk about him when they were kids – it sounded as if the two had a relationship typical of sisters and older brothers.  He is buried in the National Cemetery on Long Island and my brother, sister and I (with spouses) visited his grave two summers ago while there for another family funeral.  It was a fulfilling moment to see where he has been for the past nearly 80 years.  A street in his hometown in New York state is named in his honor.

One of my wife’s uncles, her mother’s only sibling, also gave his life for our country, becoming ill in the Pacific Theater and dying in a hospital in the States shortly after.  We have also visited his grave here in Rhode Island.  Her other uncle, her father’s older brother, was a prisoner of war in Europe and returned home with the physical and psychological effects typical of that horrible experience, including torture and starvation.

Obviously, considering my age, my father survived the war.  Up until 1942, he had been working at a bank in New York City and attending City College (which was free back then) at night.  He returned to work after coming home but, with the GI Bill, was able to finish college (again, at night) at NYU with a degree in accounting.  That ultimately led to a career in corporate financial management in a small industrial city in Connecticut.

Like most WWII veterans, Dad spoke little about the war except for a humorous anecdote or two.  Otherwise, when asked, he described artillery shells screeching overhead in support of the Allied advance. That was as close as he came to talking about how hazardous it was, though I’m certain there were more situations than that.

Dad was generally soft-spoken and didn’t talk about politics much.  After the war, he was overall an “old school” conservative and supported his Supreme Allied Commander, General Eisenhower, for President in 1952 and 1956.  He was dissatisfied with the end-of-war terms that were agreed to by Harry Truman at Potsdam where so much of eastern Europe that was freed from Nazi control came under the thumb of the Soviet Union.  (Actually, it was Roosevelt who was previously much more sanguine about the intentions of Josef Stalin and then circumstances on the ground as the war ended led to Soviets taking over eastern Europe.  I recommend the Wikipedia article on the Potsdam Conference. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Conference)

I was only 6 years old at the time, but I also remember my father was not happy that the US did little when the Soviets put down the revolution in Hungary in 1956.  Bottom line, he was a civilian Cold Warrior and supported Nixon over Kennedy in 1960, perhaps, in part, because the former was Eisenhower’s Vice-President.   But I think he admired Kennedy, a conservative Democrat and fellow WWII veteran, because of his strong anti-Communist attitudes, as shown by his famous speech at the Berlin Wall, declaring “Ich bin ein Berliner,” and his standoff with Khruschev over Russia’s missiles in Cuba.  I believe that was the closest this country has come to a direct military conflict with Russia until now.  But Kennedy and his aides (including his brother Robert) prevailed using back door diplomacy.

Because of his anti-Communist feelings and general support of U.S. post-war administrations, I believe Dad initially supported the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam to keep the South free from the Communist North.  (The U.S. had done similar in Korea, with no resolution, though at least the South continues to be free.)  But as the war went on with more American soldiers being sacrificed, he, like many in the country, became disillusioned with President Johnson’s and his generals' deceptions about the war’s status, and later, Nixon’s similar deceptions and claims to have a plan to end the war “with honor” for the United States.

Dad continued to be for candidates that were strongly anti-Communist for the next number of years, but disliked Ronald Reagan.  Though Reagan also gave a strong speech in Berlin, and despite his declarations about government being “the problem,” he also increased the national budget, deficit and debt because of military spending.  (Keep in mind that Eisenhower had warned against “the military industrial complex.”)  That was based on the fear that the US was falling behind the Soviet Union militarily when in truth the Soviet Union was much weaker than our intelligence let on.  But Reagan was fortunate to deal with a reasonable person in Mikhail Gorbachev, who, perhaps recognizing that Russia could not outspend the US and the advantages of opening up his country to Western ideas, particularly economic, did not use military force to hold the Soviet Union together.  After the Berlin Wall was taken down by the citizens of Berlin, what were called satellite countries, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, eventually declared their independence, under the leadership of courageous people like Lech Walesa and Vaclav Havel.  Some of this was peaceful but because of years of artificial combination of ethnic groups in what was then Yugoslavia, the Balkan States went through very violent times, including through what was determined to be ethnic cleansing, particularly in Kosovo.

Unfortunately, the idea of a free and democratic Russia that the U.S. could cooperate with broadly was not to last and ultimately Vladimir Putin came to power.  Some of this has been blamed on mistakes the U.S. made in encouraging Russia to quickly convert to a more capitalist economy in a country having never experienced it, especially under a democratic political system. The idea of a former KGB agent heading Russia doesn’t give one a warm and fuzzy feeling about continuing to operate under the rubric of western values and, true to form, Putin has done everything imaginable to stay in power through multiple “elections” and elimination of political rivals, especially those who have democratic leanings.

My Dad was a realist in terms of what the United States could or should do in terms of foreign intervention, being aware of mistakes made in Viet Nam and, more recently, Iraq. Based on both foreign and domestic policies of the much more conservative Republican administrations of his later years, he changed his party affiliation to Democrat.  (For the record, after following in my father’s footsteps and being a Republican in my younger years, sometime around 1980 I changed my voter registration to unaffiliated to be able to vote in primaries of either party based on my view of the candidates that were running because the states I lived in allowed for that.) 

My father passed in 2011, age 92, while President Obama was in office, so he never witnessed Donald Trump as President.  Based on what I knew of Dad and what I believe his expectations of how a President should behave toward the American people, I’m pretty certain he would be very upset with Trump’s attitudes, performance and policies.  Furthermore, considering his experience as a financial manager, I expect he would be appalled by the methods, or lack thereof, and actions of Elon Musk and his inexperienced DOGE crew.

But I think what would really upset him the most is how Trump has reversed 80 years of policy toward our European allies, especially vis-a-vis NATO, as well as being so conciliatory toward the dictator/war criminal in Moscow.  What more do we need to see to judge Putin’s criminality than the number of political opponents jailed and/or murdered and the behavior of Russian troops in Ukraine?  My father and the millions of Allied military personnel that freed Europe from two monsters would be witnessing a capitulation to a new monster.  It is a disgrace to the sacrifice they all made, many of whom did not live to witness this long period without another world war that would certainly be far more horrible than the first two.  To be sure, it has not been all sweetness and light, even just in Europe (the Balkans), but, until the Russians invaded Crimea (a historical hot spot), the military of one country had not invaded another on the European continent since WWII.  Did the previous generation fight and die to save our democracy and others only to have one man decide that it was of no consequence and align himself (and, in the process, our whole country) with a murderous thug?

During the recent meeting between Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump referred to himself and Putin somehow as co-victims of a witch hunt by the Justice Department over their actions during the 2020 US presidential campaign.  The leader of that investigation was Republican Robert Mueller, former FBI director (at the time of 9/11) and a decorated war veteran with an impeccable record.  One of Trump’s favorite M.O.s is to blame the messenger.  But I can only imagine my father’s anger and disgust over the way our president humiliated an ally in an on-camera meeting for all the world to see.  Can there be any connection between this and Zelenskyy’s refusal to cooperate with Trump’s demands to investigate Biden during their “perfect” phone call during Trump’s first term?

Whatever disagreements the WWII leaders had, and there were many, to my knowledge they were not played out in public and only became known years later.  This is one of many examples of Trump’s lack of manners and discretion.  To add insult to injury, Vice-President Vance found it necessary to pile on, saying the Zelenskyy wasn’t grateful enough and laughing when a rude reporter asked Zelenskyy why he didn’t wear a suit.  The meeting had taken on the atmosphere of hazing by adolescents.   Perhaps they are jealous of the regard that Zelenskyy has from many Americans, Europe and much of the rest of the world.  In my opinion, Zelenskyy was the bigger man and handled the situation better than everyone else in the room.

Can you imagine if Franklin Roosevelt told Winston Churchill he needed to make peace with Hitler and, in the end, he wouldn’t get to keep his whole island?  This is essentially what Trump did to Zelenskyy.

Furthermore, statements have been attributed to Trump (by reliable sources such as General John Kelly) that show his total lack of understanding about the sacrifices that have been made by his own countryman.  Even worse, he is at least dishonoring, and possibly reversing, the history and policy of our country in supporting freedom and being a reliable partner to other freedom loving peoples as they either work to continue to maintain their way of life or overcome the enemies of freedom wherever they live.  That is not something I believe the millions of Americans who fought for these ideals, let alone other freedom-loving citizens, would be able to countenance.

The country that the current President seems to want is not the country I grew up in.  Of course, no one of a certain age can expect that the world they were born into will be the one in which they spend their old age, particularly in terms of lifestyle and culture.  However, we should be able to expect that the same values described in our amazing national Declaration of Independence, Constitution and its Amendments (especially the Bill of Rights) would be adhered to.  I speak especially of human aspirations of freedom and equal rights of all.  These are what motivated the United States to fight our wars from the American Revolution to the Civil War to WWI and WWII. There have always been factions in the country whose sentiments were that the plight of others weren’t the concern of the United States, but they have generally been in the minority and it is contrary to the reality that, especially in the modern world, we cannot be guaranteed that major problems that affect other parts of the world won’t eventually visit our shores.  9/11 is a perfect example.  Trump has stated that we are protected by a “big, beautiful ocean” – actually two oceans and the Gulf of Mexico!  It’s hard to imagine anyone who has lived into the 21^st century being able to believe that is still a reasonable position.

So, in honor of my father and his fellow veterans before and since, I offer this post for your consideration.  Constructive comments and/or corrections are welcome.