Detached from realities of the past

On June 6, 1944, American troops poured onto the beaches of Normandy and marked the beginning of the end of World War II.

This past Saturday, the anniversary of the day came and went with the usual tributes, remembrances and honoring of those who fought to defeat the Axis powers.

Though we celebrate the bravery of the soldiers who left the safety and sanctuary of home to fight an enemy that was almost unprecedented in its ambition and ruthlessness, most of us do so with some degree of detachment.

The draft ended with the Vietnam War, and since then our military has been all volunteer. The modern protest movement may wonder why its 60s-style activism did not work in the new millennium against the War in Iraq. Well the answer is simple: Those who fight it volunteered to do so. In the absence of the shared sacrifice that accompanies a draft, the vigor leaks out of modern anti-war movements.

The lack of shared sacrifice also serves to put distance between the modern American and those who landed on Normandy all those years ago.

Few of us can imagine what it must have been like. The terror, the determination, the misery — our volunteer military gets a taste, but we comfortable civilians are mostly free to imagine it as we would an action-packed movie. Indeed, we get much vicarious pleasure out of movies modeled on the actual events. Without a true understanding of what those soldiers must have gone through in 1944 and right up until the end of the war, we substitute pomp for empathy and relegate America's contribution in WW II to the history books.

But we must not.

There are still some survivors of that last great war stomping about our planet, and while we can we must ask them to explain to us what that war meant to them. And we mustn't do so through the sanitized medium of television, but directly.

For those of you with WW II veterans in your family, ask them, if they will, to tell you about what they did for you and for us. For those of you who know WW II vets, thank them for their service by asking for their wisdom. And for those of you who know or have modern day soldiers in your family, recognize that a burden falls upon their shoulders that was once more evenly distributed throughout American society.

Let's not celebrate WW II veterans as near-forgotten warriors of a different time. Let's see them as they are: the thread from which our country is weaved.

Stafford County Sun editorials represent the opinion of the managing editor. Other columns, letters and cartoons on his page express the opinions of the authors and not necessarily the Stafford County Sun.