One hopes that some Americans remember the origins of what
we celebrate on the fourth Thursday of each November – the Pilgrims’ survival
after landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620.
Their sea voyage from England had been harrowing, and the avoidance of
starvation once ashore had been a close call.
But they persevered and gave thanks to God and their Indian neighbors
with a feast of gratitude.
Today, however, the holiday is more likely to elicit thoughts
of the beginning of the Christmas season, family gatherings and copious food
consumption. I’ll concede that each of
these aspects has a positive feature yet none captures the depth of the dangers
overcome which generated the intense Thanksgiving of 1621 or after World War II.
Looking back, one is inclined to see America’s survival and
successes as fore-ordained. Wasn’t it
meant to be? Perhaps. But in each of these historical events (and I’ll
include the Civil and Cold Wars), the outcome was not seen then as certain to
end well.
Visit the World War II Museum in New Orleans, as The
Sensible Conservative did recently, and you’ll see what I mean. The facility - part museum, displaying artifacts
of European, African and Pacific battles, and part Disney World “you-are-there”
immediacy, with visual and sound effects – is the site of a stirring and highly
emotional experience.
One cannot walk through – and absorb – the Normandy and
Guadalcanal presentations, among others, without appreciating that wars do not
follow scripts. Outcomes can be quite
unpredictable. Actual events can
challenge even the strongest faith.
The horrendous losses endured, and inflicted, by American
forces in Okinawa (intended to be the last major stepping stone to the invasion
of Japan) were recognized as but a fore-taste of what awaited. [A somber projection at the time: the US would need two hundred and fifty
thousand body bags for its dead if the invasion went forward.]
Some see President Harry Truman’s decision to drop atom
bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as morally questionable. Visiting the museum makes obvious that there
was no other choice.
The end of World War
II – and the survival of the Western democracies – generated unmitigated Thanksgiving
in November of 1945. That was a
gratitude without reservation
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