Freedom-Fighters Forum

By CTMCM William J. Dell, USN Ret. – May 2005

“Those who give up liberty for the sake of security
deserve neither liberty nor security.”
Ben Franklin

How can I begin to explain to you who have never served? Is it possible for you to have empathy and project yourselves into my feelings and thoughts – very personal feelings and thoughts? Is it possible for you to fully appreciate and understand the cost of your Freedom and Liberty?

Katherine Lee Bates was a graduate of Wellesley College and taught at Dana Hall before joining the faculty of Wellesley. One hundred ten years ago in 1895, she was asked to speak at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, CO. In her travels to Colorado Springs, she stopped at the World’s Fair in Chicago and saw the white buildings built for the fair. She crossed the plains ready for harvest. After arriving in Colorado Springs, she arose one morning to climb to the top of Pike’s Peak. As she looked west, she saw the purple mountains majesties. As she looked east, she saw the amber waves of grain. She pondered the greatness of our beautiful America, her pilgrims, her heroes, her patriots, and she remembered the white buildings of the fair. It was there on Pike’s Peak that America the Beautiful was born – an American treasure and a testimony of America’s greatness.

Is it possible for me to convey why it is often so very difficult for me to sing the words:

Oh, beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!

Is it possible for you who are not part of the brotherhood of war or the “Silent Ranks” to fully understand? I perhaps should explain who the “Silent Ranks” are. These are they who have known a brother or father or other relative who has served as they quietly waited for their safe return and in that waiting they also served. Yes, they too can understand?

Let us begin our journey with the Revolutionary War. I received the following in an email:

I want you to close your eyes and picture in your mind the soldier at Valley Forge, as he holds his musket in his bloody hands. He stands barefoot in the snow, starved from lack of food, wounded from months of battle and emotionally scarred from the eternity away from his family surrounded by nothing but death and carnage of war. He stands though, with fire in his eyes and victory on his breath. He looks at us now in anger and disgust and tells us this…

I gave you a birthright of freedom born in the Constitution and now your children graduate too illiterate to read it. I fought in the snow barefoot to give you the freedom to vote and you stay at home because it rains. I left my family destitute to give you the freedom of speech and you remain silent on critical issues, because it might be bad for business. I orphaned my children to give you a Republic to serve you and you have allow the government to steal it through the guise of democracy.

It’s the soldier not the reporter who gives you the freedom of the press. It’s the soldier not the poet who gives you the freedom of speech. It’s the soldier not the campus organizer who allows you to demonstrate. It’s the soldier who salutes the flag, serves the flag, whose coffin is draped with the flag that allows the protester to burn the flag!!!

Let us move forward in our history to the War of 1812. The night Francis Scott Keyes was held off shore during the bombardment of Fort McHenry. The night that our National Anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, was written. All night long he had wondered if the fort would hold against the British pounding from their blockade. Can you begin to appreciate why he wrote the words that he wrote? Or do you sing these words without any thought to their meaning? Pay particular attention to the third stanza.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER

Oh say, can you see, by the dawns early light,
What so proudly we hailed
at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars,
through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched,
were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thru the night that our flag was still there.
Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen thru the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the mornings’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh, long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Oh, thus be it ever, when free men shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace,
may the heav’n-rescued land
Praise the Pow’r that hath made
and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Can you remember the Alamo? Can you remember the sacrifice of Travis, Bowie and Crockett and the men, the heroes, who stood with them for ten days against tyranny? They all fell that you might have your Freedom and Liberty.

Then there was the awful crucible of Civil War when father fought against son and brother against brother. When our nation could have been torn apart. But we came out of that time better and stronger. During that time President Lincoln wrote a letter to a Mrs Bixby concerning her sacrifice:

November 21, 1864

Dear Madam:

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic that they have died to save. I pray that the Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN

Then in the war to end all wars, many of your grandfathers and great-grandfathers fought to also put down those who would destroy Freedom and Liberty. But still Our Flag, the symbol of Freedom and Liberty around the world still flies. And what of those “heroes” who fought? Listen carefully to the words of John McCrae’s poem “In Flanders Field.”

In Flanders Field the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands, we throw
The torch – be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

Fast forward with me now to December 7, 1941, “A day that will live in infamy.” When we lost thousands at Pearl Harbor and once again heroes had to answer the call to defend our Freedom and Liberty. Native Americans, Black, Yellow and White all shed red blood for our Stars and Stripes. The heroes and our flag went where they were sent. They went so that you might also enjoy Freedom and Liberty.

Next your grandfathers and fathers found themselves in Korea and Vietnam once again defending Freedom and Liberty. In July 1863, the little quiet village of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania was racked by the horrible carnage of war. The quiet over the farmland was replaced by the din of cannon, mortar, and a legion of rifle fire. Good men on both sides gave their lives because they were asked by their country. One Hundred years later in 1965 and half-way around the world in Viet Nam, the quiet over the countryside was again racked by the horrible carnage of war. This time the quiet was shattered by bombs, napalm, machine-gun and rifle fire. And good men on both sides gave their lives because they were asked by their country.

You may wonder why I have linked these two battles fought one hundred years apart. I believe that there is a connection. A connection that I did not realize until I saw ABC’s Day One on the battle of the la Drang Valley. I believe that there may be healing in the connection for my comrades and for myself.

Four decades have passed since the beginning of the Viet Nam War. The first major battle for our heroes was in the la Drang Valley, Viet Nam, in November 1965. In that battle, our nation’s loss numbered over three hundred men, killed or wounded. As I watched the story unfold on TV, the old feeling returned. The feeling that I have unsuccessfully tried to repressed for more than thirty-five years. The feeling that always comes to the surface when I see “The Wall” or hear “Taps”. I will probably continue my struggle for years to come because I am a member of the Viet Nam class of 1969 – a member of the brotherhood of war. My struggle is because I cannot shake the feeling that these men died in vain because they failed to preserve the Freedom and Liberty of a people who are now bound by the chains of communism.

Four and one-half months after the battle of Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln rose to make a few appropriate remarks at the dedication of a portion of the battle field as the Gettysburg National Cemetery. This was to be the final resting place for those who died there. These remark have come to be known as the Gettysburg Address.

In November 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C. To many of us “The Wall” has brought healing as we have reached out to our brothers in spirit who have gone ahead in this journey we call life. A reaching to reassure them that they are not forgotten by us who served with them. A reaching that says we, the Viet Nam War Vets, will never let others forget them either.

I struggled with “The Wall” and what it represents for some time. As I have looked at and considered the names on “The Wall”, I have looked for the answer to their struggle and the price they paid. I have looked in vain. But that night I learned I was looking in the wrong place. I learned that I could not look outward to their loss and the loss of the war, but that I must instead look inward to the gallant spirit of all of us who served.

They did not die in vain! I repeat, they did not die in vain! They gave their lives in defense of their comrades. Many of us who returned are here only because of the sacrifice of one whose name is upon “The Wall”. It is only through us, the living Viet Nam Veterans, that their deaths can have purpose. As President Lincoln said:

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

They fought for the Freedom and Liberty of their brothers. They gave their lives that we, their brothers, and you might retain our Freedom and Liberty. Such devotion and sacrifice is never in vain for the Savior of all men has said: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

And then here in our own good land, September 11, 2001. You witnessed the towers come down and the loss of thousands yourself. Have you forgotten how it felt as you witnessed the innocent and heroes give their very lives on three twenty-first century battlefields? Shortly after this the German Navy sought to honor us and these heroes. I learned of this through the following email from a young ensign aboard USS Winston Churchill (DDG-81) to his parents. (Churchill is an Arleigh Burke class AEGIS guided missile destroyer, commissioned March 10, 2001, and is the only active warship named after a foreign national.) :

Dear Dad,

We are still at sea. The remainder of our port visits have all been canceled. We have spent every day since the attacks going back and forth within imaginary boxes drawn in the ocean, standing high-security watches, and trying to make the best of it. We have seen the articles and the photographs, and they are sickening. Being isolated, I don’t think we appreciate the full scope of what is happening back home, but we are definitely feeling the effects.

About two hours ago, we were hailed by a German Navy destroyer, Lutjens, requesting permission to pass close by our port side. Strange, since we’re in the middle of an empty ocean, but the captain acquiesced and we prepared to render them honors from our bridge wing. As they were making their approach, our conning officer used binoculars and announced that Lutjens was flying not the German, but the American flag. As she came alongside us, we saw the American flag flying at half-mast and her entire crew topside standing at silent, rigid attention in their dress uniforms. They had made a sign that was displayed on her side that read “We Stand By You.” There was not a dry eye on the bridge as they stayed alongside us for a few minutes and saluted. It was the most powerful thing I have seen in my life. The German Navy did an incredible thing for this crew, and it has truly been the highest point in the days since the attacks. It’s amazing to think that only half-century ago things were quite different.

After Lutjens pulled away, the Officer of the Deck, who had been planning to get out later this year, turned to me and said, “I’m staying Navy.” I’ll write you when I know more about when I’ll be home, but this is it for now.

Is it possible for me to convey why it is often so very difficult for me to sing the words:

Oh, beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life!

Is it possible for you who are not part of the brotherhood of war or the “Silent Ranks” to fully understand?