Rosen: Duty, Honor, Country

Today is Veterans' Day - the day we honor those without whose sacrifice this nation would never have been forged nor could it continue to exist. It took a war to win our independence and freedom from England. It's taken many wars since then, the service of tens of millions and the ultimate sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of courageous Americans to defend those precious values.

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. On 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."

--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.-----

--great quote--

"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."

Thanks for posting this eloquent statement by the great General of the Army MacArthur. He is high in my personal Pantheon, high among the heroes of the U.S.A. and high among the Heavenly Host.

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