70 and 10

Today marks 70 years since the great D-Day invasion by the Allied Powers to liberate western Europe from Nazi control. Yesterday marked the 10th anniversary of the death of President Ronald Reagan. I took some time today to listen again to the speech he gave at Normandy's Point-du-Hoc on the 40th anniversary of the invasion. His remarks on that day are worth 13 minutes of your time.


I've said before, and I'll probably say again: our leaders don't seem to talk this way about America anymore. Yet I digress. One thing jumped out at me after listening to Reagan at Normandy. Toward the end of his presentation he said:

"We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent."

After more than a decade of war in Afghanistan, and the toppling of a tyrant in Baghdad, it is painfully obvious that we have become a war weary nation. The isolationist impulse is increasing dramatically on both sides of the political aisle, although for different reasons. Consider Reagan's words, and it becomes clear that if we have not forgotten the lessons learned after two World Wars, we are clearly in danger of doing so. Authoritarian aggression abounds, and the ties that bind the West are increasingly weak and impotent.

Maybe we just can't afford to protect the peace anymore. Maybe we've just lost the will to do so. Lech Walesa may be the only international voice so willing to declare (and loudly) that the United States must lead. Because if we don't, the vacuum will be filled by someone else.

What does this say to the men and women over the past 70 years and more who have paid great sacrifices for the cause of liberty and peace? What does this say to the next generation who stands in the wings, ready to inherit the world as we've left it?

It is our duty to honor and remember the events that so dramatically shaped the world we have inherited. But that remembrance should carry with it a reaffirmation, a recommitment to the lessons it offers. Our history can inform our present, if we have ears to hear.