Dearly departed but not ever forgotten friend, Mort Marks, loved the USA
See his tribute to veterans from the 11/11/2018 Villager edition below.
VETERANS’ DAY – BY MORT MARKS
“Freedom,” Ronald Reagan warned, is never more than one generation away from extinction and although I’m a Veteran from WWII and getting up in years I can still remember the “Great Depression Generation” of the 1930s and where we were on that fateful Dec. 7, 1941, a day that made my generation once again fight for freedom.
I also remember that Veterans’ Day, Nov. 11, was originally referred to as “Armistice Day.” It was to remember that at 5 a.m. On the 11th of November 1918, Germany surrendered to the Americans who had help to restore freedom to Europe.
I remember when it was decided to re-name this day “Veterans’ Day” as the day to remember and honor all the men and women who served in our Country’s armed forces, not only in World War I, but also in World War II, Korea, Viet Nam, Desert Storm, Iraq and now Afghanistan.
However, I also remember to “roll back the sands of time“ to the 1930s when I grew up in Washington, D.C. near Fort Stevens which was the closest that Confederate troops got to Washington.
I remember those years, with sadness, when there was no Veterans’ Day because we kids at that time had no desire to stop playing “war” in the trenches of that fort just to hear some men speaking about their experiences in “their war” – the Civil War.
Today, I remember that both our Union Army and Confederate Army had volunteers in 1864-5 as young as 14 and 15 years old and in the 1930s those veterans who were then in their late 70s must have had exciting stories to tell.
Today, I have time and reflect on the fact that as we honor our Veterans, there will be those who ask, “What did those wars brings us, and was it worth it?”
Those Union Civil War veterans brought us a country free of slavery and preserved a United States of America. World War I veterans saved this world from Germany’s Kaiser and we in World War II defeated the armies of a German mad man named Hitler and those of the emperor of Japan.
The United States has gone on to send troops for similar reasons to Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.
To those who question why we fight to save the innocent people of those countries, Bernard Barauch gave them the answer when he pointed out the truth that, “We fight not to implant ourselves on foreign shores, but to come home; not to remain warlike but to return to war hating; not to impose our will upon others, but so we can continue governing ourselves as we wish. From neither the first or second World Wars did we take anything from some other people for our own enrichment.”
The truth of why we Veterans are proud that we fought is also found in the following words from the song God Bless the USA: “From Detroit to Houston and New York to L.A. Well there’s pride in every American heart and its time we stand and say that I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free and I won’t forget the men who died who gave that right to me.”
Reagan in a speech before students at Moscow State University speaking of the freedom that our Veterans fought to preserve said, “Freedom is the right to question the established way of doing things. The right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to follow your dreams, even if you’re the only one in a sea of doubters.”
Veterans’ Day 2018 will find our fight for freedom was well worth it and the song continued with these wonderful words: “And I’d gladly stand up – stand up next to you and defend her still today, Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land – God bless the USA!”