Thanks to America’s Veterans

From the Revolutionary War to the Korean War, America’s military veterans were largely honored for the great sacrifices they made to secure the freedoms we often take for granted.

However, Vietnam veterans had a particularly rough time of it when they arrived home. One veteran who had spent ~eight years in a prison camp was confronted by a reporter in a mini-skirt and asked how it felt to be a baby-killer. He’d never seen a mini-skirt and had been languishing in a bamboo hut for the last several years. Few Vietnam vets came home to a grateful public. Since then, America has learned its lesson and even if people do not support wars, they at least thank the veterans for their service and sacrifices.

Why did Americans fight wars in the 20th century? We just celebrated Veterans Day November 11, the 99th anniversary of Armistice Day, ending World War I. World War II was fought against imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. After World War II, many wars were opposing the spread of communism.

Below are excerpts from history professor Paul Kengor’s November 6 article Birthday of a Bloodbath, which describes the destruction wrought by communist governments all over the world.

“Well, here at the centenary of communism, the number “100” is fitting, given that 100 million is a good stab at the number of people annihilated by the Marxist-Leninist pathology the Bolsheviks sought to spread worldwide.”

Kengor writes, “A student from the University of Wisconsin called in to a talk-show I did last week insisting that capitalism is just as lethal as communism.”

Why are people so misinformed? A recent poll showed one-third of millennials “believe more people were killed under George W. Bush than under Joseph Stalin.” More than one in four Americans believe Bush killed more than Stalin!

Harvard’s Black Book of Communism recorded 20 million killed under Stalin. However, “Alexander Yakovlev, a high-level Soviet official who became one of Mikhail Gorbachev’s chief reformers, and who was given the post-Cold War task of trying to tally the victims, estimates that Stalin alone “annihilated … sixty to seventy million people.””

The news media is complicit in this by sympathetic treatment of Marxist ideology and leaders like Che Guevara, in my opinion. A quick read of Dr. Kengor’s article should set the record straight and will help people understand why we fought hot wars in Vietnam and Korea and waged the Cold War against the Soviet Union.

Marvin Olasky’s WORLD magazine article describes the events of 1937 as loyal Soviet communists living in the House of Government near the Kremlin in Moscow were purged, usually with a bullet to the head.

“Some authors don’t connect the events of 1917 and 1937, yet it’s no accident that every major revolution (except the American one) has resulted in dictatorship and mass murder. Since the French Revolution ended with radicals murdering each other within five years, the only surprise is that it took the Russians two decades to eat their own: Declassified Soviet archives show secret police shot nearly 700,000 persons, an average of 1,000 per day during the 1936-1938 Great Terror, but some say the number was 2.5 times greater.”

While communism still threatens the world from North Korea, the world faces a different threat from radical Islam and ISIS, not only in Syria and Iraq but through terrorism worldwide. Nolan Peterson writes of the changes in France after several terror attacks there. “Since January 2015, Islamist terrorism attacks have killed 241 people in France. And since January of this year, French security officials have foiled 12 separate terrorist plots.”

American soldiers are still serving in Afghanistan (more than 11,000), America’s longest-running war, and 4000-6000 in Iraq. 450,000 of the 1,300,000 service members are serving overseas.

A tangible way to help wounded veterans

On May 12, 2012, U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Eric Myers of Linden, North Carolina, was serving his third deployment in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division when he stepped on an IED. He sustained serious injuries including losing part of both legs.

Myers was rescued by fellow platoon member Steven Rooker, who was serving as a U.S. Army Medic during his first seven-month tour in Afghanistan. Rooker stabilized Myers until he could be airlifted to more advanced medical treatment.

Until last month, Rooker had not seen Myers since that life-changing day … Here is a three-minute video of this inspiring story. GMC is donating funds to help build more “smart homes” for disabled veterans. You can join them if you wish.

Other articles

Please check out The Michigan Declaration and consider signing it.

In previous blog posts, I began telling the story of my brain tumor and the depression which followed it. The second article in the series described my faith in God which sustained me through both trials.

Having recently started a word-by-word translation of Martin Luther’s Bible from German to English, I introduced the project and published Matthew Chapter 1 . Later I wrote commentary on it; my church background and theological training is in my USA Melting Pot bio.

Dale Murrish writes on history, travel, technology, religion and politics for the USA Melting Pot club, LinkedIn, and Troy Patch. You can help this non-profit club by making your Amazon purchases through the link on the left side of their website. You can also see over a dozen ethnic presentations from people with firsthand knowledge under Culture & Country (right hand side), and outdoor presentations (Hobby & Fun), including posts on bicycling, skiing and camping.

Other interesting articles on the USA Melting Pot website have been written by Bilal Rathur on his hajj to Saudi Arabia (Part 6) and by Carl Petersen. Thanks to both of them for their contributions.