As fate would have it, today’s Mero Moment falls right in between the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Veterans Day.
Over the weekend I took my dad to an inspiring Veterans Day celebration. It was a musical mixed with old film footage from World War II. As I sat there with dad it dawned on me that, when I turned 19 years old, I was in Nashville, Tennessee on my way to school in Dallas, Texas. My dad turned 19 at Iwo Jima.
At 19 years old, dad had already been overseas for a year. He celebrated his 18th birthday in San Diego at boot camp. He went from there to the Philippines where, after several months, he contracted malaria and was sent to Honolulu to recover. When he felt better he was back with his naval group in the deep Pacific. He rejoined his group at night and didn’t know where he was. At morning, with the break of dawn, he found himself at Iwo Jima. Eight hundred ships and boats were poised for attack. Dad drove an LCM – those landing crafts that you see in newsreels where the gate comes down and the Marines hop off for battle.
Dad drove the Marines to the beach, one load after another, and carried back the dead with each load. From invasion to clean up, dad was at Iwo Jima for nearly a year.
Some people think of war as an economic stimulus project. Using some very poor economic logic, they believe that war creates jobs and stimulates dying economies. But the opposite is true. War is only destruction. It destroys lives and economies. Over 400,000 Americans died in World War II – that would be like the population of Logan disappearing from the face of the earth four times over.
Since Iwo Jima, my dad has seen America go to war in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq again. We have been involved in lesser conflicts in Grenada, Bosnia, and Somalia. Presidents have promised to keep us from war and few have kept that promise. Although one president made a promise that was kept.
When Ronald Reagan took office in 1980 his number one priority was to win the cold war against the Soviet Union. On March 8th, 1983, in an address to the National Association of Evangelicals, President Reagan said, “Let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness…let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the State, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.”
On June 6, 1984, at Point du Hoc in France, on the 40th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, President Reagan said, “We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward…We will pray forever that some day that change will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, to the alliance that protects it…Here, in this place, where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for.”
Three years later, on June 12, 1987, President Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, Germany, and uttered those famous words to Soviet Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
Twenty years ago, yesterday, the Berlin Wall came down.
In re-reading President Reagan’s words, I couldn’t help but think about my dad. Earlier in the day at the 40th anniversary of Normandy, President Reagan also spoke briefly at Omaha Beach. He read a letter from a woman whose veteran father promised to return to that beach but who died of cancer eight years earlier. The President spoke her words: “I’m going there, Dad, and I’ll see the beaches and the barricades and the monuments. I’ll see the graves, and I’ll put flowers there just like you wanted to do. I’ll feel all the things you made me feel through your stories and your eyes. I’ll never forget what you went through, Dad, nor will I let anyone else forget. And, Dad, I’ll always be proud.”
I want to wish my dad, and all other veterans and their families, a Happy Veterans Day.
I’m Paul Mero. Thanks for listening.
