As we contemplate the lack of leadership in our continued weak and tardy response to the on-going turmoil and atrocities in the Middle East, it takes me back 75 years when Democrat president, Franklyn D. Roosevelt, confronted the German Third Reich and the imperial Japanese army with Old Testament fervor.
The Germans and Japanese had committed acts, which equaled and even surpassed the horrors of ISIS and other Muslim terrorist groups, and, for the first time in his life, my father voted for a Democrat–Roosevelt. His support was well placed. I was only 12 when the war began, but I saw it unfold, and I will never forget it.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Roosevelt went on the radio to give us the bad news, a word of comfort and in broad terms what he planned to do about it. Roosevelt declared war on the Japanese and soon after on Germany and Italy. And American citizens responded.
Of the millions of American young men who went to war during the four years beginning in 1941, over a million were killed or wounded. Those who stayed home–the women, children and older men–served in other ways. They worked in defense plants, planted victory gardens, rolled bandages for the Red Cross and endured gas and food rationing—all minor sacrifices compared to those doing the fighting.
I remember it as an exhilarating time characterized by full employment, dampened only slightly by food and gas rationing. I also learned something about finance, savings and running a business.
Part of the war was financed by war bonds in denominations of $25 up to $1,000 which represented citizen loans to the government. The bonds yielded 2.9%.
My dad also built a chicken house from a pre-fab kit he bought at Macy’s and put me in business selling eggs to our suburban neighbors. On weekends, I caddied at the local country club.
D-Day
On June 6, 1944, D-Day, after three years of war, the allied forces landed on the coast of France in a daring move to gain a foothold in the enemy’s European stronghold. That night with the outcome still in doubt, President Roosevelt once again spoke to Americans.
It was the kind of reverent and stirring message I might expect to hear from GOP vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence, but not from our presidential candidates, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Donald Trump.
“Almighty God,” President Roosevelt said, “Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.
“Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.
“They will need thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause our sons will triumph.
“They will be sore tried by night and by day without rest until victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and by flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violence of war.
“For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.
“Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, thy heroic servants, into thy kingdom.
“And for us at home—fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters and brothers of brave men overseas, whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them—help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.
A prayer for strength
“Many people have urged that I call the nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that the people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking thy help to our efforts.
“Give us strength too—strength in our daily tasks to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.
“And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.
“And, O Lord, give us faith. Give us faith in thee; faith in our sons, faith in each other, faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment—let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.
“With thy blessing we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogances. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace—a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all men live in freedom reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.
“They will be done, Almighty God.”
Amen
On May 7, 1945, Germany surrendered to the Allied forces, and on September 2, following the atom bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered. President Roosevelt, who died of a stroke on April 12, 1945 and was replaced by his vice president Harry S. Truman, did not live to see the surrenders.
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