I wrote this post on my Facebook author page the other day; I met one of the principal characters in my new book.
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My wife and I went to visit with one of the main characters in my latest book today, down in a retirement community in Saratoga. He’s 91, and probably one of the more highly educated, brilliant men I have come across in my travels.
“Did you know that my father served in the Navy, and then the Army? In World War I and World War II? He wasn’t around much; I was an only child and my mother raised me; she was a strong woman. She signed the papers for me, and said, ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’ All my life I wanted to fly-so I volunteered soon after Pearl Harbor.”
Richard was anything but stupid. He went to Brooklyn Law School after the war on the GI Bill, passing the bar exam in New York. Only after that did he go for his undergraduate Bachelor of Arts degree! I asked him why.
“I just wanted to learn. I basically went into the army at seventeen and a half years old. I didn’t really have a major, I just took classes, all kinds of subjects I was interested in. I racked up 132 credits in college; they kicked me out because I had too much.” Later, he also became a highly regarded painter and collected art.
He asked me about my world travels; I mentioned I had been to Germany. He said, “Me, too. Actually about 20,000 feet over it, dropping bombs.”
Later I asked Richard about what he thought of the current state of affairs in our country. Having seen what he had seen, and gone through what he had experienced in World War II, he was not the type of man to suffer fools lightly; he gave me a blistering earful.
I pressed on. I thought it was important to ask him his thoughts about American neo-Nazis parading openly with torches and chanting ‘Jews will not replace us’, right here at home in America—after all our veterans had fought and died for in World War II. I suppose I expected him to register bewilderment, or perhaps profound disappointment. He didn’t bother with those sentiments.
“It’s simple. I hated the Army, but they trained me to kill Nazis. I was an excellent shot. If I had my .50 cal., those sons-of-bitches wouldn’t have gotten very far.”
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Immediately after the post above, I got comments about the shortsightedness of the removal of Confederate monuments, of how I am not looking at the whole picture, perhaps relying too heavily on CNN and MSNBC for my news consumption.
I definitely have some opinions to add to this ‘great monument debate’, but the point I was trying to make was that this was not about monuments or politics. ‘Jews will not replace us’. Hitler salutes? Torchlight parades? ‘Blood and soil’?
It does not simply boil down to Democrats and Republicans, monuments or no monuments. And if we want to start drawing battlelines, or can’t agree that terrorizing young Jewish children, elderly survivors, our friends and neighbors with what we are now witnessing here in America, HERE and NOW, then we have an issue.
Because there is no argument here, but it seems logic and reason no longer has a place. Is there any wonder Holocaust denial is on the rise? How does one combat this, when the questioning of the imposition of false narratives is like challenging an article of dogmatic religious faith?
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I went to visit with a family member who lives a couple hours away yesterday. We don’t talk much about politics, but the conversation came around to current events, and onto the HBO video that I had watched—twice—as the march in Charlottesville was winding down. This young reporter had embedded herself in with the neo-Nazi demonstrators. The main subject is chilling to watch, especially as he celebrates the loss of life at the hands of a fellow white supremacist. My kin remarked that slowly the realization dawned on her, up here in the northeast, that the guy living right down the street was that neo-Nazi ‘star’ down in Charlottesville. It’s not isolated, or far removed; it’s right in the backyard.
If you have not seen this video, you should take the time. It’s 22 riveting minutes, and it’s not about monuments. It’s about the ever-illusory veneer of civilization wearing away as incendiary demagogues have their way. I write books, history books, but sometimes I wonder if any of it matters. Because as Richard alluded in his no-nonsense fashion, we’ve seen this movie before.
“VICE News Tonight” correspondent Elle Reeve went behind the scenes with white nationalist leaders. From the neo-Nazi protests at Emancipation Park to Cantwell’s hideaway outside of Virginia, “VICE News Tonight” provides viewers with exclusive, up close and personal access inside the unrest.
This episode of VICE News Tonight aired August 14, 2017 on HBO.
Teaching History Matters 