V-J Day at 75

Five years ago I commemorated the 70th anniversary of this event with a much of which was dedicated to the service and sacrifice of those whose collective efforts made the end result of the greatest conflagration of the 20th Century possible. True to the title of that entry, I also commented at length regarding America’s stewardship becoming the defacto standard bearer of the Free World in the wake of achieving absolute victory and the legacy it initiated. My, what a difference five years makes! Just as there are fewer WW II veterans and members of that Greatest Generation alive today than five years ago, the nation they all so selflessly served bears even less resemblance to the one that pulled together despite all its flaws and defeated Fascism in Europe and Japanese Militarism in East Asia.

From the 2020 timeline vantage point looking back to 1945, many of us once again find ourselves scratching our noggins and quietly muttering under our collective breath nearly in unison, “What the hell happened?!” How can such a nation in the span of three generations go from the pinnacle of military and economic power to the depths of failure, national despair and near social and economic collapse?

For those of us whose lives have spanned most of the seventy-five years since that epic and historic moment of official victory on the deck of USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay, many of us have clear and impossible to forget memories of other moments of social unrest and ugly history. The events sparking the protests of 2020 are not a new thing and that is the problem. When government seeks to quell protest and dissent via police state tactics, it becomes the very thing the Greatest Generation fought to vanquish! This strikes at the very core of the national soul and we should never buy into the notion that leadership promoting these tactics as a first line response to non-violent protests is acceptable. Such decisions taint hard fought legitimate victories. Inability to deal with and attempt to resolve grievance on a level playing field is not reflective of strong leadership.

Seventy-five years ago today the Commander-in-Chief, President Harry Truman, had a sign on his desk that was his trademark:

He found himself in a position at a moment in time to make some heavy and hard decisions with far reaching consequences for better or worse, some good and others perhaps not so much, but he never once shrank from his duty or his accountability to the nation or its allies. Let it also be noted that President Truman had a lengthy track record of actual work and MILITARY SERVICE UNDER HOSTILE FIRE. He understood better than most the requirements of competent leadership not to mention the value of it. It is still hard to believe that is even in question in this day and age. Such however is the metric looking back from that 2020 perspective on who it was in charge before most of us alive now were even born.

A basic take-home lesson from WW II is never underestimate the value of competent leadership. We should all be forever grateful that the President who got the phone call informing him of the Pearl Harbor attack did not dismiss it as “Hawaii’s problem,” hang up and continue with his golf game. Bad or ineffective leadership will be reflected in the results of whatever endeavor. In a life threatening crisis success or failure of leadership will be judged by the number of fatalities, particularly any that are avoidable. In a World War, it is no accident that the victors are led by competent professionals who were at the top of their game.

On the 75th celebration of V-J Day we find ourselves two months and a day away from a Presidential Election. Make no mistake about it, this election is a referendum on current U.S. leadership. Since the unconditional surrender of Japan in 1945, the United States is in a far deeper economic hole and has less influence among traditional and regional allies than we had during the isolationist days before Pearl Harbor. The World is still a very dangerous place and many wish us ill, pandemic or no pandemic. Our Cold War adversary who, proxy conflicts aside, was defeated without a shot fired has never stopped fighting. They delight in the fact we are shooting at each other and are quite polarized and divided amongst ourselves. The more this is allowed to continue the less likely America is to be a force in the World for anything good, bad or neutral. This must change. The first step is to replace the cast of characters in government beginning with the Commander-in-Chief. Leadership that actually listens to his/her Intel community and acts accordingly on what they are told will go far to restoring much of America’s lost influence. For us, those who inherited what was hoped to be a better World seventy-five years ago, the least we can do to honor the memory of those who stepped up and shined brightly against all odds at the darkest of moments in the nation’s history and ultimately succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. As one who has served, those core values that were present on the deck of USS Missouri seventy-five years ago are something I was able to embrace and internalize in the following credo: America, my country right or wrong. When right to be kept right. When wrong, to be put right. As we see how far we’ve come and how deep we’ve sunk since 1945, let’s reverse course and start back up to the height of that pinnacle that was a national crowning achievement. We make the first step back on Election Day, November 3rd.