Memorial Day Redux
It’s a holiday weekend, so I decided to publish this week’s edition of the newsletter two days early. It also helps that I am recycling a blog post I wrote five years ago, so I am ready to launch a little early too. When I originally posted this piece, I must have stumbled upon some secret to Search Engine Optimization, because unlike most of my posts, which are viewed by only a few hundred people, this one has had almost 19,000 hits. Or maybe there was something about its content that attracted people (I can dream, right?).
I imagine that none of us could have predicted in May 2016 the extent of the chaos, violence, and discord that would prevail over the ensuing years, and reading this piece in hindsight, I wonder whether it was on target, overly pessimistic, or overly optimistic. I’ll let my readers be the judge. So here it is, with its original title as well.
Have a blessed Memorial Day 2021. Let us keep our fallen heroes in our prayers.
Memorial Day 2016
I am not even close to worthy of the sacrifices our men and women in uniform have made to protect my freedoms. Nothing I have done in life begins to hold a candle to their service. So let me begin by simply saying "thank you" to any of them who may read this post. My country, my family and I are forever in your debt. I cannot ever emphasize that enough.
Although I never served in the military, I am a patriot. I deeply love my country and what it stands for. I proudly served a term as President to a bar association that launched a program to provide free legal advice to military veterans. I recited the Pledge of Allegiance when I was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar, and repeated it every time I participated in admissions ceremonies for new lawyers. I get teary-eyed when I think about the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner as it is being performed and try to imagine the setting in which Francis Scott Key penned them. My father served in the Army during World War II, and my uncles served in Europe, Africa and the Pacific during that great conflict. One of my cousins served in the Battle of the Bulge, an experience so traumatic he would never talk about it. My father-in-law served during the Korean Conflict, one brother-in-law served in Korea after the fighting ended, and another served in Viet Nam.
I care greatly about America's place in the world and its relationships with its allies. I want our country to be strong, a beacon of freedom, and a defender of liberty and justice throughout the world. At times, I have been disappointed when our leaders have adopted policies that do not serve these goals, but I have always been proud of and grateful to our men and women in uniform who have sacrificed greatly to achieve them.
Too often, the words "duty" and "honor" seem lacking in our vocabulary. Used properly, they connote the importance of sacrificing our own self-interest for the greater good, just as our fallen heroes and veterans have done throughout our history. Misused, they can be code words for blind obedience to unfit leaders. Our revolutionary heroes knew better than to submit to the tyranny of King George III. Our heroes of WWI fought bravely to end German aggression over its European neighbors. Our heroes of WWII fought just as bravely to defeat a fascist in Italy, an evil dictator in Germany, and an imperialist regime in Japan. Tom Brokaw has dubbed the Americans who helped save the world from these tyrants "The Greatest Generation," a label that, quite rightly, has stuck.
I fear that today, like never before, we are at risk of a new fascism, or "neo-fascism," coming to our shores. Characterized in part by ultra-nationalism, populism, anti-immigration policies, nativism and a push towards autocratic rule, this new wave of neo-fascism may be the greatest threat our democracy has faced since its inception. It draws its strength, in part, from the resentments, bigotry, and ignorance of a large enough minority of the population to place it in power. If successful, it threatens serious damage to, if not destruction of, our democratic institutions, including our separation of powers among the branches of government which has long served to keep each branch in check. It also threatens our nation's stature in the world with misguided and uninformed foreign policies and an absence of intelligent diplomacy.
The last constitutional crisis America faced was Watergate, when our President believed himself above the law, and intelligent people seriously feared he was capable of ordering tanks to roll into Washington, D.C. to protect his hold on the White House. He ultimately recognized that he had no choice but to capitulate to a Congress that was about to impeach him and a unanimous Supreme Court that wouldn't let him hide the evidence of his own wrongdoing. Although democracy and our constitution prevailed, they did so only after two long years of turmoil that roiled our nation. I am not confident that our democracy, which in recent years has suffered the ravages of extreme partisan politics, would prevail again if faced with a similar crisis.
What has made America great, and what continues to do so, is not its overpowering strength, but its pursuit of liberty and justice for all. We do not always achieve these ideals, and in certain respects have fallen far short of them, but they are our ideals nevertheless and the goals towards which we must always strive. If we are to be true to our pledge, we must elect leaders who reflect and honor them.
I do not presume to speak for anyone but me, and I could never be a worthy spokesman of our military personnel or veterans, many of whom I know disagree with me. Still, on this Memorial Day, I hope we will pause to reflect on the sacrifice our heroes have made in service to the principles of liberty and justice which have truly made America great, and which continue to do so. And in honoring our heroes, I pray we will renew our pledge to protect America from the very scourges that they risked and sacrificed everything to defeat.