by Sarah Palin
. . . The Marines with me—I took one look at them and I said, “Well this war was won.” They were kids, oh, I would say from 18 to 22, none of them were older. They were the calmest people I have ever seen. They were up there popping away with rifles, having a swell time and none of them were alarmed. I mean the thing [a Japanese bomb] would drop through, they would laugh and say “My God that one was close.” I figured then, “Well, if these kids are American kids, I mean this war is practically won.” (emphasis mine)
Today, one Hollywood director, Steven Spielberg, has shown some of the same support for our military in movies like Saving Private Ryan and his TV miniseries The Pacific. But can you imagine any Hollywood types personally putting themselves on the line for freedom the way Stewart, Fonda, and Ford did? Today Hollywood seems to be more at home disparaging the war effort than supporting it. During the Iraq War, Hollywood did something it had never done before in the history of American warfare: It made movies like Rendition and Green Zone, films that were critical of the war while the troops were still fighting in the field. It’s their right to be critical, of course, just as it’s our right not to support undermining our troops while they’re risking their lives in battle; and Americans didn’t. These anti–Iraq War films all tanked at the box office. You would think that if love of country didn’t inspire Hollywood to make different films, love of box office receipts would.
What makes this reflexive anti-Americanism hardest to swallow is the fact that it is our troops—these men and women who are being portrayed as unwitting (and witting) agents of greed and evil on the big screen—who make the entertainment industry possible. Hollywood stars like nothing better than to stand up on Oscar night and congratulate themselves for their courage in speaking truth to power. They forget—or refuse to acknowledge—that someone is paying the price for their freedom to speak their minds. Dissent may be a form of patriotism, but it’s far from the highest form. Our men and women in uniform own that honor. I am reminded of a poem my uncle e-mailed me recently:
It is the veteran, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the veteran, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.
It is the veteran, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the veteran, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble.
It is the veteran, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the veteran, not the politician, who has given us the right to vote.
It is the veteran, who salutes the flag, who serves under the flag, and whose coffin will be draped by the flag.
Not everyone in popular culture likes to run America down, of course. I particularly liked country singer Toby Keith’s song, “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue.” Toby was inspired to write it by the events of September 11, and he wrote it in honor of his father, an army veteran who died just before the attack. At first he would sing it only at live performances for the troops. Then the commandant of the Marine Corps told him it was his duty as an American to record the song. So he did, and here’s my favorite part:
And you’ll be sorry that you messed with
The U S of A
’Cause we’ll put a boot in your ass
It’s the American way
We ask a lot of our fighting men and women. We ask them to be away from their families for long stretches of time. We ask them to live in hellish conditions. We ask them to risk their lives. The least—the very least—we can do is support them in this mission. That doesn’t mean never questioning a war or our leaders. It means understanding when fundamental principles are at stake, and acknowledging those who bear the burden of their defense. It means being able to say what Ronald Reagan said to the surviving “boys of Pointe du Hoc” on the fortieth anniversary of the D-day invasion:
You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One’s country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.
Hollywood may have its version of our military, but most of the young men and women who are sacrificing for our ideals are people we’ve never heard of. They are ordinary Americans shouldering a tremendous burden.
It says something remarkable about the American people and not just our ideals that our country has survived and thrived as long as it has. We can and should celebrate the giants of America—the Washingtons, the Lincolns, and the Reagans. But for more than two hundred years the burden of protecting this remarkable country has fallen on ordinary Americans and their families.
When I was a kid, my mom collected copies of the Reader’s Digest and kept them on a shelf in our living room. I used to love reading through the snippets of Americana in those compact magazines. One summer my family drove five thousand miles round trip to my dad’s twenty-fifth high school reunion in Sandpoint, Idaho, in a 1969 blue Ford station wagon. All we had for entertainment was each other and a pile of Reader’s Digests. We read many stories of the valor of our fighting men and women that summer.
I remember over the years reading an amazing story about Staff Sergeant Henry Erwin, a chunky, red-haired radio operator on a B-29 conducting raids on Japan from Guam during World War II. Sergeant Erwin was a soft-spoken guy with a Southern accent that his crewmates liked to tease him about. One night, on a routine squadron mission, Sergeant Erwin was in what they called a “pathfinder” plane—the plane that dropped a phosphorus smoke bomb to direct the formation before they reached the target. Sergeant Erwin’s job was to release the phosphorus bomb through a narrow tube in the rear of the plane on a signal from the pilot.
But that night there was a malfunction. The phosphorus bomb—which burns so hotly it effortlessly melts metal—exploded in the tube. Instead of falling out of the plane, the bomb bounced back up onto Sergeant Erwin.
He was blinded in both eyes and had an ear seared off by the blast, but the radio operator knew he had a bigger problem. The phosphorus bomb was now at his feet and burning through the deck of the plane toward the full load of incendiaries on the racks below. Here’s what Sergeant Erwin did next, as told to the author of the article by the pilot, Captain Tony Simeral:
There was no time to think. He picked up the white-hot bomb in his bare hands, and started forward to the cockpit, groping his way with elbows and feet.
The navigator’s folding table was down and latched, blocking the narrow passageway. Erwin hugged the blazing bomb under an arm, feeling it devour the flesh on his ribs, unfastened the spring latch and lifted the table. (We inspected the plane later; the skin of his entire hand was seared onto the table.)
He stumbled on, a walking torch. His clothes, hair and flesh were ablaze.
The dense smoke had filled the airplane, and Simeral had opened the window beside him to clear the air. “I couldn’t see Erwin,” he told us, “but I heard his voice right at my elbow. He said”—Simeral paused a moment to steady his own voice. “He said, ‘Pardon me, sir,’ and reached across to the window and tossed out the bomb. Then he collapsed on the flight deck.” A fire extinguisher was turned on him, but the phosphorous still burned.
That very night, while Sergeant Erwin clung to life as he was treated for his burns, his superiors wrote up their recommendation for him to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Washington approved the honor in record time, but because there was no medal available on Guam, they had to send to Honolulu to find one. Sergeant Erwin’s commanding general personally delivered the medal from Honolulu to Erwin’s bedside in Guam. Everyone was happy they were able to honor the hero in time, but this modest man’s actions to save his comrades spoke louder than any award ever could. I remember thinking that the title of the article said it all: “Sergeant E
rwin and the Blazing Bomb: A Story of a Night When the Congressional Medal of Honor Seemed to Be a Modest Award.”
I also read about a later war, the war in Vietnam. I remember one horrifying article that reported how Captain Chris O’Sullivan of Astoria, Queens, was killed in 1965 leading a counterattack against the Vietcong. The son of Irish immigrants, Chris O’Sullivan had grown up in a walk-up apartment above a candy store. Like so many immigrants, Chris’s father had a special understanding of the gift that is American citizenship, and he instilled that appreciation in his son. Captain O’Sullivan served with bravery and distinction in Vietnam. But I read with heartbroken amazement how, after his death, his widow received anonymous phone calls saying “it was a good thing” her husband was killed in the war.
I’m grateful every day that Track and his fellow soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines live in a country that no longer looks down on their service. The treatment of servicemen and -women coming home from Vietnam—literally being spit on and called “baby killers”—is a dark and shameful chapter in our history. We can and often do disagree with the decisions made by the civilian and military leaders who command our young men and women. And we do become war weary. But the American people, to their everlasting credit, have no stomach for taking out our war weariness on the men and women who serve.
To the contrary, I meet Americans every day who are engaged in activities to honor and support our troops, whether it is baking cookies (Track and his buddies received them, by the way, and they send a hearty thanks!), knitting wool caps for those cold nights in Afghanistan, or just writing a letter every once in a while.
Just as important, Americans continue to support our troops and their families after they come home, many of them with serious injuries. Todd and I have met with dozens of returning servicemen and -women, including those through the Wounded Warrior Project. We’ve visited Walter Reed Hospital to meet mighty warriors, and I’ve twice visited Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan receive treatment. We are forever grateful to the hundreds of Americans—many of whom have no personal connection to the warriors they care for—who haven’t forgotten that our troops need our support even after they’ve left combat.
What may be most remarkable about our servicemen and -women is, whatever their reasons for serving, heroism isn’t one of them.
I remember being on the campaign trail with John McCain and hearing people attack him in deeply personal ways and thinking, Do they know that they are insulting a genuine American hero? Are they fit to tie his boots, much less take cheap shots at him?
Most Americans are by now familiar with the outlines of the story of John’s five and a half years of captivity in a North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camp. We know about the torture he endured, the cruelty of his captors, and the love and camaraderie of the fellow Americans he was imprisoned with.
But what most Americans may not know is that John McCain doesn’t consider himself a hero. Why? Because, under constant beatings and torture, and after repeatedly refusing to be released before Americans who had been imprisoned longer than he, John signed a confession written by his captors. Here is how he describes the scene in his wonderful memoir Faith of My Fathers:
At two- to three-hour intervals, the guards returned to administer beatings. The intensity of the punishment varied from visit to visit depending on the enthusiasm and energy of the guards. Still, I felt they were being careful not to kill or permanently injure me. One guard would hold me while the others pounded away. Most blows were directed at my shoulder, chest, and stomach. Occasionally, when I had fallen to the floor, they kicked me in the head. They cracked several of my ribs and broke a couple of teeth. My bad right leg was swollen and hurt the most of any of my injuries. Weakened by beatings and dysentery, and with my right leg again nearly useless, I found it almost impossible to stand.
On the third night, I lay in my own blood and waste, so tired and hurt that I could not move. The Prick [a prison guard] came in with two other guards, lifted me to my feet, and gave me the worst beating I had yet experienced. At one point he slammed his fist into my face and knocked me across the room toward the waste bucket. I fell on the bucket, hitting it with my left arm, and breaking it again. They left me lying on the floor, moaning from the stabbing pain in my refractured arm.
In hideous pain, John tried to take his own life, he goes on to describe, by using his shirt as a noose to hang himself. Thankfully, the guards saw him and stopped this remarkable American before he could be successful. The guards didn’t do it out of any love for America, but they were nonetheless giving us a great gift. Soon after, however, came John’s moment of reckoning:
On the fourth day, I gave up.
“I am a black criminal,” the interrogator wrote, “and I have performed the deeds of an air pirate. I almost died and the Vietnamese people saved my life. The doctors gave me an operation that I did not deserve.”
I had been taken back to the theater after telling the guards I was ready to confess. For twelve hours I had written out many drafts of the confession. I used words that I hoped would discredit its authenticity, and I tried to keep it in stilted generalities and Communist jargon so that it would be apparent that I had signed it under duress.
The interrogator had edited my last draft and decided to rewrite most of it himself. He then handed it to me and told me to copy it out in my own hand. I started to print it in block letters, and he ordered me to write in script. He demanded that I add an admission that I had bombed a school. I refused, and we argued back and forth about the confession’s contents for a time before I gave in to his demand. Finally, they took me to sign the document.
They took me back to my room and let me sleep through the night. The next morning, they brought me back to the theater and ordered me to record my confession on tape. I refused, and was beaten until I consented.
I was returned to my cell and left alone for the next two weeks.
They were the worst two weeks of my life. I couldn’t rationalize away my confession. I was ashamed. I felt faithless, and couldn’t control my despair. I shook, as if my disgrace were a fever. I kept imagining that they would release my confession to embarrass my father. All my pride was lost, and I doubted I would ever stand up to any man again. Nothing could save me. No one would ever look upon me again with anything but pity or contempt.
From the comfort of my life of safety and security in Wasilla, it is impossible for me to truly understand how John endured what he did, much less how he could feel shame for breaking under the cruelty of his captors. But such is the remarkable character of this man and the men and women of our armed forces. So many voices try to subtly paint these young men and women as too stupid to know what’s good for them; to portray them as people, in Senator John Kerry’s words, who have failed to get an education and are therefore “stuck in Iraq.” But our military men and women are made of stronger stuff than these critics can ever imagine. They defend their critics’ right to bad-mouth them and they don’t complain. They protect our very freedom and don’t consider themselves heroes.
I wonder if this irony ever dawns on the self-described truth tellers of Washington, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and academia: all of the values they hold dear—their ability to speak freely, to criticize and caricature the military, to demonize Christianity and America’s traditional values—mean nothing unless they are defended by these courageous men and women.
The same is true for all of us. Washington politicians talk in lofty tones about their love of liberty, and many of us outside of Washington do, too. After all, freedom has brought us tremendous opportunity and prosperity in America. But what does it mean to simply say we love freedom? Every so often—too often, unfortunately—freedom has to be fought for. It has to be defended or else it’s just an empty word.
I remember at Iditarod Elementary School, in the early
1970s, my big brother’s sixth-grade choir (which hadn’t yet been taken over by the politically correct police) sang “Freedom Isn’t Free.” I listened intently as the young baritones, under the direction of Mr. Kraus’s baton, sang:
“Freedom isn’t free. You’ve got to pay the price. You’ve got to sacrifice, for our liberty.”
All these years, these lyrics have stayed with me. And thanks to heroes like John McCain, they’re more than just words.
One of the last stops on my Going Rogue book tour was at Fort Hood, Texas, in early December 2009. Less than a month earlier, on November 5, an American military psychiatrist who had become a jihadist opened fire in a military clinic on base. Before he was taken down by police, he managed to kill thirteen of his fellow soldiers and wound dozens more.
When Todd and I visited Fort Hood, the base was still raw with the wounds of November 5, 2009. Thanks to the generosity of Going Rogue readers, we were able to donate thousands of dollars to the families of servicemen and -women killed and wounded in the attack.
Just before my visit, my brother sent me a description of the American military man that I think is spot-on—with the exception that it doesn’t include American military women. I don’t know who wrote it, but the attributes it describes apply to both sexes equally:
The average age of the military man is nineteen years. He is a short-haired, tight-muscled kid who, under normal circumstances is considered by society as half man, half boy. Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country. He never really cared much for work and he would rather wax his own car than wash his father’s, but he has never collected unemployment either.