Letter to the Editor: We are first, Americans

October 10^th

Letter to the Editor

On December 7^th, 1941, a day that will live in infamy, we were all Americans. It was on that day that three quarters of our Pacific Fleet was decimated at Pearl Harbor.  Yet six months later, on June 4^th, 1942, Americans turned the tide of the War in the Pacific at the battle of Midway.

Two years later, on June 6, 1944, 73,000 soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy and according to the figures released by the US Army Center of Military History there were 6,036 causalities, including wounded and missing; they were all Americans.

On July 27^th, 1953 the armistice was signed ending what was called a Police Action but better known as the Korean War. According to the Department of Defense the number of service men KIA was 36,574 and another 103,284 were wounded; they were all Americans.  

Before any service man or woman made the supreme sacrifice in defense of our Country they did so as Americans, not Republicans or Democrats. We are now witnessing in our history the most outrageous treatment of our departed service men and women that has ever befallen our Nation.

At the World War II Memorial are monuments to the bravery and sacrifice of those men and women who defied the Nazi’s in Europe and the Empire of Japan; they gave their lives as Americans.  The Memorial is serviced by a sidewalk, no doors to go through, no stairs to climb.  Many that came to Washington to pay their respects and remember their fallen brethren did so in wheel chairs.

For many this may be the last time that they will be able to pay their respects before they themselves are ‘promoted to Glory’.  And their way is barred.

It is inconceivable that any President would punish the very men and women who served so gallantly by denying them, for a day, the opportunity to share their final years among so many who unselfishly gave of their lives.

It is within Obama’s authority to open these memorials but his agenda is to maximize the pain of these freedom fighters.  It is about what you would expect from someone who never wore the uniform of our military.  History will not remember a Harry Reid or a John Boehner but it will remember Obama as the man who closed the door on those Americans who served our Great Nation. Those men and women were all Americans. Somehow he has forgotten this.

CCTA Member, Louis Call