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Protecting the patriot pipeline
"The Bridges at Toko-Ri" — the gripping 1954 screen adaptation of James Michener's novel of the same name — tells the story of a Navy veteran of World War II called back into service aboard an aircraft carrier during the Korean Conflict. Understandably reluctant to leave his family and budding law practice, the young pilot unflinchingly accepts his duty, even leading a difficult mission behind enemy lines against a pair of well-fortified but strategically important bridges.
When the protagonist's jet is ultimately shot down and he's killed on the ground by North Korean troops, the film's concluding scene shows his commanding officer — memorably portrayed by Frederic March — gazing out to sea and wondering aloud, "Where do we get such men?"
At the time the movie was made, it was a rhetorical question. We knew where we could find such men because they were being cultivated in great abundance here at home.
From the time they entered school, students stood at attention every morning, they placed their hands on their hearts and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Often this was followed by a prayer.
When the youngsters opened their history books, they learned about the magnificent sacrifices made by succeeding generations of U.S. servicemen and women in every corner of the globe to ensure the safety and freedoms on which the nation was built.
They were taught that such deeds represented the highest form of service and were deserving of our enduring gratitude.
Not anymore.
Assuming modern teachers are allowed to depart at all from union-approved lesson plans that sow racial disharmony, expose impressionable young minds to sexual concepts and behaviors they can't begin to comprehend and deliberately terrify them with pseudo-scientific predictions of environmental holocaust, it's to inculcate them with a loathing for America and everything it stands for.
Including its heroes.
Once you accept, for example, the notion that the Founding Fathers were misogynistic, land-grabbing, slave-holding tyrants motivated only by their relentless thirst for profits and indifference to the suffering of those whose labors produced it, how could you possibly honor their handiwork or those who gallantly defended it with their very lives?
In the fetid swamp of leftist ideology, those who fall in combat are, at best, tools. At worst, they're complicit in the crimes of those who benefit from the institutions for which they needlessly died.
To be sure, our military is still the finest in the history of the world, and it's manned by courageous warriors resolute in their commitment to God and country. But if so, it was almost certainly instilled in them despite, not because of, lessons learned in the indoctrination centers that once dispensed genuine knowledge.
On this Memorial Day, U.S. Forces are, as always, in harm's way. Both here and abroad, they could be called at a moment's notice to join their fallen brethren in the everlasting legion of honor. They accept this burden along with the privilege of wearing their uniform.
For them, and for those who have already paid the ultimate price, the least we can do is refuse to tolerate public education that trivializes their valor or perpetuates despicable lies about the just causes for which they died.
At the Freedom Foundation, we consider this latter mission our solemn duty, and we strive every day to be worthy of it by ridding our schools and government agencies of the poison threatening the supply of patriots on which we all depend.
May your Memorial Day be a safe, happy celebration of principles Americans have always held dear enough to die for. |
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