Blurred Lines

Today is D-Day. It took place on June 6, 1944. I was not alive at that time, but countless people gave their lives that day so that I could live in freedom. We (America) went to war and attacked on the beaches of Normandy to rid the world of a very real threat. The Nazis were taking over Europe. I have posted this clip long ago, but it is worth watching again. It is the first part of Saving Private Ryan by Steven Spielberg. If you think war is just a video game, watch this. It will change your mind and your perception of what combat is like forever. (WARNING: Language and Violence)

When I think of what is happening in this country right now, I am so sad. What is going on right now is a slap in the face to these men who risked their lives to fight a very real enemy. An enemy we have let creep back onto our streets, OUR STREETS, the streets of America. Hell, on the college campus not an hour away from my front door, people marched through the streets with NAZI flags and chanting Nazi slogans, and the president did not speak out against them. When did the line become so blurred of right and wrong, between the good guys and the bad guys? How can we spit in the faces of these men who literally walked into a massacre on Omaha Beach by even entertaining the thought that Nazis are on the side of what's right? Do you want to tell them or their descendants that they died that day for nothing because really the Nazis aren't so bad. I don't. How long are we going to let this go on?  “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke. 

Then They Came For Me

Survivors

70 years! What a very long time. 70 years ago, it would still be almost 20 years before I would come into this world. My mother was only 5 years old. My grandparents were 34 and 36. No, I am not writing this so that you will know the ages of my family in 1945. What happened 70 years ago today changed the world as we know it. Auschwitz, one of the Nazi's concentration camps was liberated on January 27, 1945. I cannot imagine what the remaining prisoners must have felt after the horrors they had seen and made to endure daring themselves to believe that it could all be over. How could they even imagine waking up on a morning and not wondering if this would be the day they would die or be killed? We can read memoirs and articles and books, and see movies and television shows and be absolutely shocked, but none of us will ever know what any of those people endured.
What allows someone to survive such unspeakable treatment? How can such evil exist? How can one human being treat another human being so terribly simply because they are different? I wish I had an answer. I don't. It is unfathomable to me that people could be so cruel and actually enjoy it.
This day has been designated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. REMEMBRANCE DAY. Webster defines remember as to have or keep an image or idea in your mind of (something or someone from the past) to think of (something or someone from the past) again. According to this definition, there are very few left who can remember. I wish it were called something else. Remember seems too trivial to me. I want it to be called International Holocaust this happened, and we can never forget that it happened Day. I am so lucky to have grown up in relative comfort and without fear. So many don't. What these people were forced to do on a daily basis would have made me want to run just so that some SS guard's bullet would put me out of my misery, but so many endured, and lived to tell the story the Nazi's tried so hard to cover up. Thousands of people killed a day, a day, and one man convinced a nation it was the right thing to do. That scares the hell out of me! " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." ~ Edmund Burke
What would have happened if one person had stood up for the right when it first started? We sit back and say, Well, it's not here. It's not happening to me. What can I do? I'm only one person?

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. ~ Edmund Burke

I write this post on May 2, 2011, the day after it was announced to the world that Osama Bin Laden was dead at the hands of U.S. Navy Seals. I have seen many reactions posted on Facebook about this monumental event. Most have been "thank yous" to our troops and general pride in America, but some have contained a tone of shame that we, as Americans, are celebrating today. Some have even compared us to the extremists that were dancing in the streets when the Twin Towers fell and 1000's of innocent lives were taken. There is a HUGE difference in celebrating the deaths of thousands of people who were attacked and killed in an unprovoked act designed to terrorize millions and celebration that the man who masterminded the plan to have 4 planes, also filled with innocent people, hijacked to crash into buildings for the purpose of making a statement is now dead. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. " On that clear day in September, 10 years ago, it felt like evil triumphed, and if we had sat back and done nothing, it would have. WE DID NOT! What happened yesterday is called justice, and I am proud of our troops and our Navy seals that put their lives on the line so that EVIL could be vanquished. We are celebrating the victory over wrong, that those good men and women did not sit idly by while our safety and freedom were threatened. They put themselves in harm's way and some gave the ultimate sacrifice to fight this evil of Terrorism. The fact that the supreme leader of this movement has fallen is something that we claim as victory is nothing to be ashamed of.