This Great And Noble Undertaking

Sixty-eight years ago at about this time, American, British and Canadian soldiers, supported by the full weight of America’s industrial might, stormed ashore in Normandy to begin the liberation of Europe.

And for that first day – the near-debacle at Omaha, the fierce knife-range duel between the ships and the German shore guns, the Canadians’ brutal house-by-house advance off Juno Beach – the fact was that for all of America’s vast industrial might, the real arbiter of victory, and of the future of Western civilization, was the GI, the Tommy, the Jock, the Canuck, spurred on only by training and fear and guts and the skirl of Lord Lovat’s bagpiper.  It was they – not the wealth and the industry and the sheer firepower…

…who earned that victory, the first domino on the road to the liberation of the Old World.

———-

Yesterday, for all of the GOP PAC money that was poured into Wisconsin (enabled by the Wisconsin Democrats’ stupid decision to try to negate the elections of 2010, which in turn nullified applicable campaign finance laws), the victory similarly belonged to a few million Republicans – and not a few Democrats who had just plain had enough of childish petulance of the Wisconsin Unions and the party they seem to own.

It’d be specious to compare the courage of someone charging off a Higgins boat with someone going to the polls – which is, indeed, just exactly what the kid on that Higgins boat 68 years ago today was fighting for, so that voting need not be a life or death issue in this country.  (But it’s for sure some dim-bulb leftyblogger will claim that I’m making that comparison.  Mark my words.  That’s why I’m writing this here; I’ll mock them in advance).

But as a hard-fought first step toward this nation correction not just one mistake, Barack Obama’s misguided election, but indeed generations of mistakes that led the world’s wealthiest and most powerful significant nation into being a debtor state?  This is huge.

As Walker said, it‘s time for leaders who will make the tough choices, and fight for them.

Are you listening, Minnesota GOP Legislative caucus?

Are you listening, Mitt Romney?

2 thoughts on “This Great And Noble Undertaking

  1. I know a guy with a Higgins and the only time he charges off it is when the anchor is slipping. Ok, it’s a ’47 Higgins, but still built with mahogany plywood left over from the PT boats. It’s fun to look at those old boats, especially when the Higgins Classic Boat Association came to town about 9 years back.

    Speaking of Higgins boats (the invasion craft, that is), it’s always interesting to see the note Eisenhower wrote for release in case of failure on D-Day, and when you see that he got the date wrong by a month you can see that he was pretty nervous about what he was doing.

  2. Yes, it’s totally amazing how left wingnuts will decry wars and soldiers, without giving credit for the fact that had it not been for those brave men and boys, we could be living in a much different world today. You know, one where they could be shot, just for being liberals!

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