War brings camaraderie. The men and women who fought World War Two,
what Tom Brokaw called America’s “Greatest Generation,” came together to
fight a war, and taking care of your buddy in a foxhole taught them
that we all have to watch out for each other. It’s how we achieved
victory, and when the war was over, it’s how we became a hard working
and strong democracy, a leader in the world’s economy and, for a while,
at least, the global standard for human and civil rights.
But a nation at war with itself finds its comrades-in-arms with
blinders on, seeing only the side of the road those like them choose to
toe. It doesn’t matter that politicians of all persuasions have tried to
build bridges across the divide. The stubborn perspective of Republican
hardliners ignores, disavows or buries any outreach as if it were an
apple from Eden’s serpent. The foxholes where they have planted
themselves for this battle are dimly lit gutters, and their comrades
tend to be the rats in three-corner hats that scamper through the
flotsam of rotten, old ideas.
 |
World
War Two veterans, politicians and journalists enter the memorial, on
the Mall, in Washington, DC, Wednesday.
(Photo by Leo Shane III, Stars
and Stripes) |
That’s why it was particularly galling to see the Republican National
Committee use a group of aged World War Two veterans as props when they
“forced” the reopening of the memorial to that war, Wednesday, less
than 48 hours after they refused to budget the National Park Service and
allowed the government to shutdown.
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