Last year, I met a gentleman in his 90's, a Lieutenant Colonel, who had trained at Camp Toccoa for the 101st Airborne. I shook his hand and thanked him, trying not to sound like some crazy groupie. I admire those guys so much. I admire their families so much. During the writing of After Pearl and After Overlord, the two McKenna Chronicles books that tell the tale of the Family's involvement in WWII and the aftermath, I was in a constant state of awareness that I could never do them justice. It was all just too big; the sacrifice, the fear, the bravery, the horror.
Today, I sat in the library of the Big House and read one of the vintage magazines that bore the address of one of my grandfather's brothers. It was an old Life Magazine, issued just after President Kennedy was assassinated. Much of the magazine was about JFK, of course, but there was also a huge, pages-long article about the "American Negro" and what "they" wanted. This was back in 1963, you understand. It was fascinating reading it; like looking through a keyhole into the past.
It got me thinking. What is the difference in the attitude of a country when there is a war? A war from the outside, as when the United States fought Nazi Germany and Japan? World War II was a clear-cut sort of war; us against them; good vs evil. It was obvious then, and, to my mind obvious today, that it was a war that had to be fought. It had to be won. Nazi Germany was the real, live bad guys by almost anybody's standards. If they had won, if they had taken over the world, things would be very, very terrible.
So, we united to fight them. Not only with each other in this country, we united with other countries to fight them. Things with these other countries were not always ideal in this unification of troops and generals, but unify we did. The United States were united. Like a Family. The Allied Armies were united. As Families do, we united when someone from the outside attacked us...even if "us" was the island of Oahu, a place that many people on the continent of the then United States had never heard of. They bombed the ships out there, they killed our boys, we united.
Why is it different now? The United States seems so at odds with itself. What did we fight for on D-Day? For this? People seem to hate each other for everything. We hate the difference in skin color. We hate the difference in where we live. We hate the difference in political party. We hate the difference in religion, in lifestyle, in music. We hate when others don't hate like we do. We hate when others don't tolerate like we do. We hate the conservatives; we hate the liberals. We hate the blacks; we hate the whites. We hate Christians and atheists and Muslims and if anyone says they don't hate anybody; we hate them maybe most of all. And we push and we push and we push until everybody hates us, so we can point at them and tell them what haters they are.
Is this what those guys stormed the beaches at Normandy for?
Is this what Martin Luther King marched for?
I still feel like the United States is a Family. Families fuss at each other when there is not enough threat from the outside to fuss at. When someone from the outside threatens Family; Family unites. At least my Family does. I know there are some Families who splinter and forget each other and never speak.
That's not my Family.
We fight our way back together. Because it matters. Because we matter. Because there's nobody like us.
There's nobody like the United States. Just like there's nobody like Greece, or France, or Viet Nam, or Uganda. We're blood. Blood spilled from 1776 through D-Day through 9/11. Other countries have their dates, their blood. The United States has its own.
Our own.
Revelation: Maybe those guys stormed the beaches on Normandy so we CAN fight our way through. If we hadn't won the war, we wouldn't have been allowed to have anything to disagree about. We would have marched in lock-step, no discussion, no dissension tolerated. Because they stormed the beaches...and won...we're allowed to disagree. Because Martin Luther King marched, we're allowed. We're allowed to argue, fight even.
But, it doesn't give us a license to hate.
That's the difference. Families shouldn't hate each other. Get on each other's nerves; aggravate each other; drive each other nuts....but not hate. Hate means divorce. Hate means dissolution. Hate means dreadful things done to each other. That's what I keep seeing.
And it's not right.
That's not what D-Day was fought for. That's not what Family is about. That is what breaks my heart about the United States right now. Because I love this country and it seems that so many other people in this Family of Country don't.
So, on June 4, 2016 (if the rain doesn't threaten to ruin my books) I'll be in Toccoa, Georgia at the base of Currahee Mountain, telling anyone who pauses at my table about the books called: After Pearl, and After Overlord; the WWII McKenna books. I am looking so forward to seeing some veterans come by so I can shake their hands. They sacrificed a lot; more than any of us will ever know.
They are my heroes. I hope we in this country don't let them down.