Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Utah, Gold, Sword....

I very clearly remember my history teacher's pleased surprise as I eagerly diagrammed the beach holds of the Normandy invasion. World War II always falls on the outer edges of springtime in history classrooms, and as my classmates impatiently ruffled the few pages left in our textbook, I was psychically heavy with platoon boats, paratroopers, and that massive wall of enemy fire.

One aspect of history that never fails to fascinate me is the "what if" factor. Too many Americans simply that history simply unfolds the way it is supposed to with no appreciation for the tough choices and sacrifices that have marked our destiny. What if the weather didn't hold that day? What if one Founding Father was one step to the right or the left? What if Neil Armstrong hadn't had the proper whoop-de-doo to find a safe landing pad on the moon as his fuel gage dropped like a rock? Sometimes it's scary and sometimes it's heartbreaking (oh, if only NASA had paid attention to that O-ring...) but the exercise almost always ends in gratitude. Jerry Springer not withstanding, this is truly a God-steered nation.

A&E has produced a for-TV movie about one of these questions--the process of preparing for D-Day--and Tom Selleck, who plays Ike, made this fascinating parallel between WWII and the War on Terror:

"One of the things I wonder about, though, is whether the D-Day invasion could happen today in a 24-hour news cycle. The media would be asking all time about the exit strategy. Remember, 1944 was an election year. There would probably be a December 7 commission running around. Reporters would be saying that Patton doesn't have an army up north and you've been lying to us for two years, and that you can't put our boys in those firetrap Sherman tanks. We're living in a different world now."

We are indeed.

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