Let’s try to find a way to be the country we once were

Opinion: We’ve triumphed over adversity and countless enemies; now we’re divided

By Howard Gold

A month ago, I followed the coverage of the 70th anniversary of D-Day with great interest, particularly a special section in the New York Daily News featuring the few surviving veterans of the Normandy invasion of June 6, 1944.

Those still around are in their late 80s and 90s. Some can no longer recall the details of that extraordinary day. Others speak with the humility and reticence typical of men of their time.

Some 73,000 Americans stormed the beaches and fields of Normandy along with 83,000 Brits and Canadians. A total of 4,400 Allied troops lost their lives on what became known as the Longest Day. But their efforts helped break Nazi Germany’s stranglehold on Europe and led to the defeat of Adolf Hitler’s monstrous regime within a year.

Gen. George C. Marshall told Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower, who led the invasion, that it was “the greatest victory in the history of warfare.”

It was much more. World War II and its aftermath — the occupation of Germany and Japan, which transformed the Axis powers into prosperous democracies; the Marshall Plan; the Cold War and the protection of freedom in Europe and elsewhere — were in my opinion the single greatest achievement in American history since the nation’s founding.

Yes, there were many problems (which I’ll discuss later). But an emerging superpower used its economic might and “can-do” spirit to further the ideals of democracy and freedom on which this country was founded. Everything since — except maybe the civil rights bill of 1964, the moon landing of 1969 and the final victory over Communism in the Cold War — pales in comparison.

And that’s our problem. The malaise Americans express so often now reflects a sense we’ve seen our better days, that future generations will not enjoy the freedom and prosperity we had. If you polled Americans, I believe most would say we’re not the country we were.

And we’re not, not because the Greatest Generation were superior people, but because their life experiences were dramatically different.

The vast majority of the 12 million Americans who served in World War II lived through the poverty and desperation of the Great Depression.

They were literally lean and hungry. The average World War II soldier was five-foot, eight inches tall and weighed 144 pounds. (In 2008, nearly 39% of Americans from 18 to 24 were overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control.)

A mere one in 10 had attended college. One in three had only a grade-school education. But even America’s most favored sons thrust themselves into the heat of battle. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. and Theodore Roosevelt Jr. gave their lives. John F. Kennedy and George H.W. Bush were war heroes.

On the home front, five million American women entered the labor force and, alongside the men, in America’s factories built the Arsenal of Democracy . They produced 80,000 landing craft, 100,000 tanks and armored cars, 300,000 airplanes, 15 million guns and 41 billion rounds of ammunition.

Americans pulled together in ways that would be unthinkable today. They saved bacon fat, planted “victory gardens” and lived with rationing of meat, sugar and gasoline.

Still, reported historian Allan M. Winkler, “seven out of 10 Americans said they had not had to make any ‘real sacrifices’ as a result of the war.”

Their efforts paid off. “The United States emerged from World War II with extraordinary advantages that would ensure prosperity for decades: an intact, thriving industrial base; a population relatively unscarred by war; cheap energy; two-thirds of the world’s gold supply; and great optimism,” wrote Rick Atkinson in “The Guns at Last Light,” the third volume of his magnificent Liberation Trilogy.

The British Empire was finished. Germany and Japan were devastated. The Soviet Union, which emerged as our chief adversary, had lost more than 20 million people in its brutal war against the Nazis.

With World War II, the U.S. assumed world leadership as our economic power was peaking. The Greatest Generation went on to build the most prosperous consumer economy ever seen, as well as a national highway system and a space program that put a man on the moon.

 

But a generation later, a rebuilt Germany and Japan became stiff competitors just when the era of cheap oil ended. Corporate America’s obsession with quarterly profits led to serial restructurings of iconic American industries while post-Mao China became a dynamic part of the world economy. The personal computer and Internet transformed the economy. Piece by piece, the Arsenal of Democracy was dismantled and once-great manufacturing hubs became song titles.

Throw in several undeclared wars with ambiguous outcomes, big-money lobbying, lowest-common-denominator politicians, presidents whose leadership veered between reckless and feckless, a poisonous media culture, and just plain greed, and is it any wonder we’re so deeply divided?

World War II wasn’t a triumph for everyone. The U.S. Armed Forces that defeated Europe and Japan were segregated , and many African-Americans who fought courageously couldn’t vote.

After the war, Rosie the Riveter returned to hearth and home, and only 30 years later did women return en masse to the labor force.

Japanese-Americans were infamously thrown into internment camps. Defeating Japan involved nuclear weapons that began a terrifying nuclear arms race. The Cold War, too, was full of hubris and overreach (e.g., the 1953 Iran coup, the Bay of Pigs invasion).

And who would trade today’s affluence — even with all our problems — for the hard-scrabble existence Americans lived then?

Still, it’s difficult not to envy the unity our parents and grandparents had. (We had it after September 11th, but not for long.) And their accomplishments were astounding. They won the war and made the peace. They built the world we live in today.

No, America isn’t the country it was then. But we need to at least try to find some common ground. That won’t be easy for a former economic monopoly and declining, rather than rising, superpower. But we owe it to the last members of a dying generation who gave so much and asked for so little in return.

Have a safe and happy Independence Day!