Americans Can See Hope in Remembrance

October has arrived, and with it the final month of what has seemed like an interminable election season. As a sometime political commentator, I should be filled with excitement, eager to follow the twists and turns of the days to come, the October surprises if such occur, the campaign events as they unfold, the building suspense culminating on election night, the tipping points in each critical state. And, with so much riding on this election, perhaps more than any in recent memory, I will certainly have observations to make in the weeks to come.

Just now, however, before giving in to election fever, I want to take a moment to reflect on a recent experience, one that offers encouragement that, whatever happens on November 5th, our country can find a path to a brighter future. We’ve done it before, and I remain convinced that we can do it again. But finding that path requires a backward glance, a brief look at the country we once were, with the hope that, in the fulness of time, we can become that country once again. (READ MORE from James H. McGee: Female Superheroes Not Needed at the Secret Service) 

France Honors Brave Americans

Several weeks ago, I participated in an event commemorating the 80th anniversary of the WWII liberation of eastern France from the Germans. The event centered on the brutal battles for a bridgehead across the Moselle River near Metz. I’ve written of these battles before, of how they shaped my father’s life and, through him, my own.

I’ve also written of the several French groups who’ve done so much over the years to keep the memory of these battles alive, “Thanks GIs” and “The Friends of Fort Driant,” among many others. I’ve interacted with these groups for the better part of a decade, and I’m consistently astonished at their dedication, whether in helping to identify MIAs or, more generally, in promoting an appreciation of American sacrifice in the cause of freedom.

Here in the U.S., such sacrifice seems largely forgotten, but not along the banks of the Moselle, where the locals are pleased to refer to the fight for a river crossing as “Omaha Beach in Lorraine.” And without taking away from the enormity of Omaha Beach, the comparisons are at least suggestive, not least in terms of the casualties suffered: some 2,000 killed, wounded, and missing before the bridgehead was secured in the face of fanatical SS troops, repeated tank attacks, and bombardment from German fortifications impervious to virtually every weapon in the U.S. artillery arsenal.

Winning the bridgeheads was, above all, an infantry battle, one where the usual American advantages were lacking, one in which grit and determination won the day.

The anniversary celebration, frankly, was astonishing. It centered upon the dedication of a huge monument to the American soldier, a roughly 50 by 30 foot concrete rectangle, displaying, on one side ten soldiers paddling one of the tiny wooden assault boats used in the crossing, on the reverse some 945 stars, one for each of the KIAs, WIAs, and MIAs lost in the first of the two bridgehead battles (the thousand plus lost in the second battle still await a similar display).

At the base of the memorial wall are the words, in French and in English “They gave their tomorrow to give us our today. The wall is surmounted by a large “Red Diamond,” the symbol of the 5th Infantry Division, which bore the brunt of the bridgehead battles. It’s quite the remarkable display, all the more so when one considers that it’s construction relied in large part on local donations.

The dedication ceremony included an immense French honor guard, an American honor guard from an Air Force base just across the border in Germany, speeches by a host of French dignitaries, both civilian and military, and by the U.S. Consul-General. My French is less than perfect, but I was consistently impressed by the thoughtfulness and passion that the French officials brought to this special moment. A highlight was when the band played “Amazing Grace,” followed by “Taps” and the French equivalent “Aux Morts,” or “To the Dead.” The crowd — and it was truly a crowd — in attendance greeted these moments with the utmost respect.

My daughter and I were fortunate enough to be placed with a group of “honored American guests,” honored not because of anything we’d done, but rather as representatives of our fathers or uncles or grandfathers. I found myself seated next to the nephews of one of my boyhood heroes, whose uncle, Dale B. Rex, had earned a Distinguished Service Cross only a few hundred yards from where we sat that afternoon.

The ceremony culminated with a moving display presented by a small team of young French military re-enactors, who emerged from the opposite river bank amidst a massive fireworks display, paddling a tiny assault boat, a direct copy of the ones used 80 years ago. 

They crossed precisely in the place where the Americans fought their way across the river — a football field-wide expanse of water — under machine gun , mortar, and cannon fire. Landing on the near bank, the re-enactors took on board a beautifully crafted American flag floral display and paddling back to mid-stream, floated it out upon the water, a special tribute to the many soldiers who drowned in the crossing. And that moment, there were few dry eyes among the hundreds who lined the river bank.

For everyone who happens to read this, I can only say that I wish you could have been there. More, I wish that you could take away the message of hope that I and the other American attendees drew from this event. For the last few years, and particularly as we reach the end stage of a bitterly contested election season, it’s easy to focus on all that divides us, and easy, too, to wonder if the U.S. still can produce young men of the caliber of those who won the Moselle bridgeheads, and who prevailed in hundreds of similar battles until the war was won. It’s easy to wonder if we even understand any more how wars are won, what victory looks like, or even to believe in a country worth fighting for.

Americans Have Done This Before

So where, then, do I find even a modicum of hope? Simply this. If one attends, honestly, to the history of the years prior to WW II, one is reminded over and over again of how bitterly divided our country had become in those years. We all heartily sing-along to “This Land is Your Land” these days, without every recalling that it’s author, Woodie Guthrie, was a Communist sympathizer, and that from the bread lines to the highest reaches of the Roosevelt administration, there were many who firmly believed that the great American experiment had been proven a failure. 

Defending the country was widely derided as a “sucker’s game,” and then, as now, American intellectuals, and leading lights in the media, were willing to look elsewhere — chiefly to the Soviet Union — for their political inspiration.

Even as our future security hung in the balance, even as, belatedly, we began to rebuild our military in the face of a world filled with contempt for all that we stood for, our Congress, in 1941, could only sustain this buildup by the margin of a single vote. Unity only came with the shock of Pearl Harbor, a unity born of fury, but maintained through the experience of common purpose for years after the Axis had been defeated. (READ MORE: The Paris Olympics Aren’t Representative of the France I Know)

I hope that it won’t take another Pearl Harbor or a 9/11 to enable us to recover our faith in each other as Americans and to work together across our various differences. Reading the headlines each day, I find, sadly, that optimism seems a fool’s enterprise, that hopes arise only to be dashed to pieces. And yet I still hope, inspired by moments like the ceremony I just attended, by the remembrance of courage and common purpose, by appreciation for the fact that there are others, a continent away, who still honor what we once were and, God willing, will be again.

James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region. A forthcoming sequel finds the Reprisal team fighting against terrorists who’ve infiltrated our southern border in a conspiracy that ranges across the globe. You can find Letter of Reprisal on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited.

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