Then and Now
Sixty years ago today, the Germans launched a long-planned counteroffensive against the Allied army in Belgium. Their 500,000 men, who had been secretly assembling in the lightly defended area of the Ardennes forest for weeks, drove a salient into the Allied line in a desperate attempt to reach Antwerp and split the Allied army in two. The Germans hoped to achieve a forced peace on their western front.
The salient -- or "bulge" -- would give the battle its name. The Battle of the Bulge would last the next forty days and be the costliest of the war.
The men resisting the German action would not have a merry Christmas. They fought in snow and bitter cold against a savage enemy; 86 captured Americans would be machine-gunned in cold blood near Malmédy on December 17.
We have men fighting today with the same determination and courage, and facing conditions and and an enemy every bit as terrible, as in 1944. But if the Battle of the Bulge happened today, we would also have a Congress holding hearings to pin blame on political opponents for allowing half a million of the enemy to assemble unnoticed. Brigadier General Anthony MacAuliffe, whose reply of "Nuts!" to the German commander requesting his surrender of the surrounded town of Bastogne is the stuff of legend, would likely be keelhauled before a media even more hostile to our military than the enemy himself. Or thanks to the same perfidious media, we might win the battle but have it portrayed as a loss, as with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.
Yes, it is a different world sixty years on from the start of that momentous battle. Time will tell if we will prevail in the great war of our time, but for now it seems that despite a military whose might makes our WWII forces pale in comparison, and despite an American majority who showed in the recent election that it has the will to see it through to the end, we can still look at our nation today and say that we have met the enemy, and he is us.
UPDATE: Here's an excellent article from Investor's Business Daily along the same lines as my post.
The salient -- or "bulge" -- would give the battle its name. The Battle of the Bulge would last the next forty days and be the costliest of the war.
The men resisting the German action would not have a merry Christmas. They fought in snow and bitter cold against a savage enemy; 86 captured Americans would be machine-gunned in cold blood near Malmédy on December 17.
We have men fighting today with the same determination and courage, and facing conditions and and an enemy every bit as terrible, as in 1944. But if the Battle of the Bulge happened today, we would also have a Congress holding hearings to pin blame on political opponents for allowing half a million of the enemy to assemble unnoticed. Brigadier General Anthony MacAuliffe, whose reply of "Nuts!" to the German commander requesting his surrender of the surrounded town of Bastogne is the stuff of legend, would likely be keelhauled before a media even more hostile to our military than the enemy himself. Or thanks to the same perfidious media, we might win the battle but have it portrayed as a loss, as with the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.
Yes, it is a different world sixty years on from the start of that momentous battle. Time will tell if we will prevail in the great war of our time, but for now it seems that despite a military whose might makes our WWII forces pale in comparison, and despite an American majority who showed in the recent election that it has the will to see it through to the end, we can still look at our nation today and say that we have met the enemy, and he is us.
UPDATE: Here's an excellent article from Investor's Business Daily along the same lines as my post.
posted by Steady Earl at 5:51 PM
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