Monday is Memorial Day

Published Eurasia Review on 27 May, 2013
By Lawrence S. Schneiderman

Monday, May 27, 2013, is Memorial Day in the United States. Memorial Day is dedicated to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who gave their lives in service to their country.

General George S. Patton understood well the meaning of Memorial Day:

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died.

Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

President Barack Hussein Obama has another understanding of Memorial Day. Mr. Obama, Commander-in-Chief, doesn’t believe the freedoms that Americans enjoy today are worth fighting (for).  

On Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University, Mr. Obama said:

This war (the War on Terrorism), like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.

While that may be Mr. Obama’s reading of history, in the classrooms I attended, he would have failed the course.

A war ends when you either win it or lose it. Not when you pronounce its end. Furthermore, when you withdraw without having vanquished your enemy – be assured you have lost that war, and your enemy lives to fight another day.

Mr. Obama may capitulate to Islamic terrorism, but I don’t believe the American people will. A Commander-in-Chief willing to knuckle under, raise the white flag, or throw in the towel, is “absent without official leave” (AWOL). Such a Commander-in-Chief is not fit for command, and should be relieved. 

And parenthetically, a mass media that will not report the important events of the day, is itself AWOL, and no longer deserves our attention or respect. They are no better than any dictatorial Orwellian lackey, e.g. Pravda. As one astute pundit recently opined, the “pathological stupidity of Western news services,” is reason for profound concern.

Monday is Memorial Day.

If, said Churchill, a mad dog makes a dash for my trousers I shoot him down before he can bite.

Monday is Memorial Day.

It was another wise Englishman who said:

For all we have and are,

For all our children's fate,

Stand up and take the war,

The Hun (Jihadist) is at the gate!

Monday is Memorial Day.

Lawrence S. Schneiderman is an International Consultant and Dr. of Public Policy, Vanderbilt University. The views expressed are the author’s own.