Thank You to Our Veterans
As an American, a woman, and a Jew, I am filled with gratitude this day to United States veterans and those U.S. and Coalition troops currently paying the price for my freedom. I am also grateful to the soldiers who protect Israel.
Today a friend noted that in the years since September 11, as that trauma has receded in the public mind, some on the left have gained traction in dismissing any discussion of the evils of terrorism or the dangers of Islamist extremism as “fear-mongering.”
But realists and those on the front lines know that this remains a dangerous world, especially for people of principle for whom freedom, human rights, pluralism, and human dignity are more than just words. As Thomas Jefferson said, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
The soldiers in my life, dear friends to me (Louis Marano, who served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam; David Rosner, lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corps who served in the Gulf War and Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq; and Joshua Lehmann, who was an officer in the IDF and mobilized in the Lebanon War,) have raised my civilian’s awareness of two things: One, evil forces in the world are tenacious and will only be deterred when confronted in some fashion, usually by force, or, ideally, threat of force.
Two: when the West goes “soft”- when too few of us are able to stand up for what we hold dear – that is when we begin to surrender what is most dear to us, to lose ourselves and our civilization. The worst among our enemies will not be deterred by talk alone. Israelis have learned this bitter lesson many times over. Many Americans, including American Jews, even in the aftermath of the Holocaust, still don’t get it.
The world demands compassion, understanding, and yes, respect for diversity–but the truth is, those great liberal values are much easier to practice than courage. And without courage, we would not have the liberty to uphold them. The world demands courage of us.
Those of us who are patriots stand up for our country, the United States, and for our ally Israel, in little ways almost every day: by confronting distortions and lies about the U.S. and Israel, for instance, or by being open about our love of country and liberty in the presence of people who have no such reverence. But the truth is, these tiny acts of courage, while important, are negligible, and we are spared having to summon great courage because the soldiers of the free world are doing it for us.
Deepest thanks to those who shoulder the lion’s share of our burden in answering the call to courage.
This entry was written by Heather Robinson and posted on November 11, 2008 at 6:08 pm and filed under Blog. permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Keywords: . Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. */?>