In 1944, eighty years ago, U.S. troops were fighting fascism in Italy, France, and all across the Pacific. Over 3,000 Americans died in the Battle of the Leyte Gulf alone, as kamikaze planes dove into naval vessels. The invasion of Normandy and ensuing battles cost 29,000 American lives, with over 54,000 wounded or missing. 60,000 died in the bloody Italian campaign. But statistics mean little until we consider the human costs: fathers, husbands and lovers gone forever. Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters who would never come home again. The scars of the wounded, a lifetime without a limb or an eye, or suffering from what we now call PTSD. And those who served came from across the land. Southern sharecroppers fought alongside New York Jews. Navajo code speakers and Nisei Japanese, Black and white, hillbillies and city slickers, farmers and stockbrokers, all in this struggle against evil together.
Eighty years is not that long ago. If you don’t know, ask somebody or search family records. Chances are you will find relatives who served and maybe were wounded or died in order to defeat Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini, the faces of fascism.
Now, nearly half the country seems willing to invite fascism in the guise of Donald Trump through the front door. The precious freedoms that our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents fought and died for seem as undervalued as stale bread. The disastrous results of strongman rule with an official religion and muzzled press are illustrated almost daily in Russia and Iran, yet we are blithely toying with bringing the same here. And make no mistake. Donald Trump’s ramblings, when they are coherent, focus on racial hatred and revenge. J.D. Vance does not disguise his dark ideas for imposing religious strictures on everybody, particularly women.
When you cast your vote this November, remember the sacrifices required to end fascism eighty years ago, and honor those who served, were wounded or died with that vote. For if we do not put an end to the danger now, I fear that the next war will be here.