If you happen to love America and if you happen to honor the role of American military men and women in securing and protecting freedom around the world, then you’ll want to sit down, relax, and take a few deep breaths before continuing. If you use it, make sure that you have taken your blood pressure medicine. Why preface my article with all this? Simple. This will raise your blood pressure and leave you boiling mad.
In July 2010, the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) sponsored a workshop entitled “History and Commemoration: The Legacies of the Pacific War.” College professors from across the nation were chosen to attend the seminars held at the University of Hawaii. Expecting an opportunity to visit impressive sites commemorating the American victory over tyranny, as well as meeting with other scholars who shared her interest in this facet of World War II history, Professor Penelope Blake experienced quite a different event.
In her own words, Professor Blake states:
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In my thirty years as a professor in upper education, I have never witnessed nor participated in a more extremist, agenda-driven, revisionist conference, nearly devoid of rhetorical balance and historical context for the arguments presented.
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In a letter written to her Congressman specifically requesting that taxpayer funding be withdrawn from the NEH, Professor Blake delineated several points demonstrating the intent of the presenters at this NEH sponsored workshop to disparage and dishonor the spirit and integrity of United States military personnel in general and the “Greatest Generation” in particular:
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1. The U.S. military and its veterans constitute an imperialistic, oppressive force which has created and perpetuated its own mythology of liberation and heroism, insisting on a "pristine collective memory" of the war.
2. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor should be seen from the perspective of Japan being a victim of western oppression.
3. War memorials, such as the Punchbowl National Memorial Cemetery (where many WWII dead are buried, including those executed by the Japanese on Wake Island and the beloved American journalist Ernie Pyle), are symbols of military aggression and brutality "that pacify death, sanitize war and enable future wars to be fought."
4. The U.S. military has repeatedly committed rapes and other violent crimes throughout its past through the present day.
5. Those misguided members of the WWII generation on islands like Guam and Saipan who feel gratitude to the Americans for saving them from the Japanese are blinded by propaganda supporting "the image of a compassionate America" or by their own advanced age.
6. It was "the practice" of the U.S. military in WWII to desecrate and disrespect the bodies of dead Japanese.
7. Conservatives and veterans in the U.S. have had an undue and corrupt influence on how WWII is remembered.
8. Conservatives are reactionary nationalists (no distinction was made between nationalism and patriotism), pro-military "tea baggers" who are incapable of "critical thinking."
9. Relating to the above, even members of the NEH review board are not immune to "reactionary" pro-military views.
10. Veterans' memories of their own experiences in the war are suspect and influenced by media and their own self-delusion.
11. War memorials like the Arizona Memorial should be recast as "peace memorials," sensitive to all viewers from all countries, especially the many visitors from Japan.
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Professor Blake did a magnificent job rebutting each of the points she includes in her letter.
Shortly before discovering this report about the NEH workshop, I finished reading “Citizen Soldiers” by historian Stephen E. Ambrose. Early in the book, within the first one hundred pages or so, Ambrose included accounts of some atrocities committed by American soldiers. Most of the incidents centered around the shooting of surrendering enemy and unarmed prisoners. Ambrose points out throughout his book that these types of atrocities were isolated and were not systemic to the general command structure of American forces. By the end of the book, as the Allies are making their way across Germany, Ambrose relates that some of the most valiant fighting by German soldiers occurred as they sacrificed themselves to slow the Russian juggernaut so that more of their fellow citizens and soldiers alike could have a chance to surrender to the American forces. They knew that the Americans came to liberate, not dominate.
Even though the European and Pacific Theaters of Operation presented their respective and unique challenges to young American boys thrust into a brutal global conflict, and even though cruelties by “our boys” have been documented, the final truth is that American combatants liberated island after island from Japanese cruelty and, in the end, liberated Japan itself from the totalitarian grip of brutal Imperialists.
It is a particularly despicable act on the part of these so-called academics who set about to dishonor and desecrate the sacrifice of thousands of young Americans who gave so much in order to not only preserve freedom in America, but to liberate countless others subjected to the tyranny of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. It is even more despicable that they are allowed to perpetuate their revisionist messages with the aid of taxpayer funding. It should certainly be clear by now to even the most casual observer that those living in the land of left-believe are ultimately bent on crippling America.
In both protest to this kind of nonsense and in honor of those who have served the cause of liberty and freedom, make a special effort to thank a Veteran and/or active servicemember this Veteran’s Day.
