Lest We Forget
Nearly 80 years later, we are losing our last surviving connections to the Second World War.
Memorial Day often conjures up images of barbecues, block parties, and a much-needed long weekend after months of dreary weather. Hot dogs, hamburgers, cold beer, and time well-spent with family and friends are American staples on this Monday in late May. I think of it as the unofficial start of summer, as it was usually the first weekend our family spent at the beach all year. But all that ignores what the day itself is meant to commemorate: the heroic sacrifices of the men and women of the American military throughout our history.
On Memorial Day, we honor those who gave their lives in the line of duty, fighting for American interests, values, and freedoms. Our fallen soldiers died in battles that span the globe, from Manassas to Monte Cassino, and cover the whole of our 250-year history. They died fighting the evils of slavery, fascism, communism, and terrorism. They fell on the beaches of France, in the mountains of Afghanistan, on tropical islands in the South Pacific, and on the high seas. Some gave their all in well-known exhibitions of courage that earned them the Medal of Honor, while others remain entirely unknown. What they share is the fact that they took their final breath fighting on behalf of all Americans, our ideals, and our future progeny.
This Memorial Day, however, I am not primarily thinking of those courageous men and women who ended their lives in the service of their country, but of those who survived their service, particularly in the Second World War. That world-rending conflict, more than anything else, irrevocably shaped the nearly eight decades since it ended. It plays a starring role in our popular culture, influences how we perceive geopolitics and warfare, and serves as a touchstone for our society. But those who remember it firsthand are quickly dying out.
Most veterans of World War II have unfortunately passed away given their age at the time and the incredible number of years that have elapsed since then. The last vestiges of that Greatest Generation are now shuffling off this mortal coil, leaving us all worse off. The oldest living American veteran of the war, Lawrence Brooks, died at age 112 in 2022; Woody Williams, the final surviving WWII Medal of Honor recipient, also passed that year; the last American triple ace of the conflict, Clarence Anderson, died at age 102 earlier this year. As these valorous men pass from the scene, we lose something that we cannot recapture: the experience of fighting – and winning – a truly existential war.
Such a totalizing experience is not entirely alien to us – we did just live through a once-in-a-century pandemic, after all – but undergoing such a massive societal shift by choice is. America could have simply avoided conflict in 1941, if we were prepared to sacrifice our interests and our world status to do so. We did not need to force total defeat and unconditional surrender on our enemies, but we chose to do so. We did not need to reorient our entire economy and civilization towards winning this conflict against the evils of totalitarian rule, but we chose to do so. We could have left the British in the lurch to deal with the Nazis on their own, but we chose not to. We could have allowed the Japanese to gain hegemony over Asia, but we chose not to.
We, as a society, decided to do the hard thing because it was the right thing. We didn’t avoid sacrifice; we embraced it. We came together and unified in the face of evil, despite our differences. When the war started for us, after an attack on a place that wasn’t even a state yet, the nation joined as one to avenge that perfidious assault. Men of all ages, races, backgrounds, and political persuasions volunteered to serve in combat, while those unable to fight – women included – worked overtime to make that war effort possible. The success we had in that war, a success we have not recaptured since, was the product of a whole-of-society effort. And that is a lesson that we must internalize as soon as possible.
The world today is more deranged and chaotic than it has been since 1945. We are facing a greater array of serious threats than perhaps even the Axis powers posed. And our society is hopelessly divided. We argue over the small things and the big things. We call each other every name in the book. We genuinely believe that our fellow Americans hate us. But we are not all that different from the men and women who won World War II. We share with them a national cause, an ideology of liberty, and a deep desire to secure the future for our children. Just as they did, we have the ability to unify in the face of existential peril, putting aside our petty squabbles for the greater good. We can accomplish difficult, potentially overwhelming feats, if we decide to put our collective minds to it.
But we are in danger of forgetting these lessons that our forebears so dearly learned, at a time when remembering is a must. That is precisely why losing the last personal connections to that epochal conflict is so devastating. The people who lived through the horrors and exigencies of total war can teach us an incredible amount about grit, priorities, and sacrifice – all things we currently seem to lack on a civilizational level. Reading abstract accounts of the past can be useful, but it pales in comparison to interacting with those who lived it themselves.
This Memorial Day, we should mourn the loss of that living connection to our national heritage, but steel ourselves to relearn the hard lessons that our ancestors absorbed. The Greatest Generation won that title through blood, tears, toil, and sweat; let us study their experience so as to avoid having to earn such a moniker ourselves. The more we remember our past, especially the necessary, yet chosen, challenges of the Second World War, the less likely we will be forced to repeat it.