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We Left Our Youth on the Beach

A World War II veteran, closer now to 90 years than 80, told me he once had a dream that he died and was reunited with his fellow soldiers who had perished between Normandy and the Ardennes.

They were all as he remembered them, young men. He, however, in the dream appeared as he does today -- well advanced in years. They didn't know him at first, he being now decades their senior. It disturbed him to see himself that way, and to be seen by them an old man.

They left their youth on the beach.

Manhood rushed upon them, and they waded in -- wave upon wave. Then, just as suddenly, the life-tide ebbed, seaping into the sands of Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword.

Those who fell left memories of perpetual youth and vigor, boldness, daring, duty and courage. They left their youth on the beach.

And what of they who slogged on through sand and mud, through hedgerow and hamlet, through field and forest eventually returning to their homes? What of they who rode the transports back, building homes and families, building vibrant communities and lasting institutions? They too left their youth on the beach.

All of the boys died that day near Cherbourg, Le Havre, Dieppe and Calais.

Beneath the deafening roar of artillery, amid the smoke and stench, manhood marched ashore soaked in salt and blood, and a decade passed in a moment. Only snapshots of youth remained. Only men lived on, aged beyond years.

Generations rolled by, and a thousand daily flag-bedecked caskets mark now each passing day. Those who left their youth on the beach with their fallen brothers of another century now leave their bodies for a distant shore.

Every war exacts its toll.

We left our youth on the beach, and in the sweltering jungles, among the snowclad hilltops and in the choking sands.

Yet green limbs, pruned in the flower of life, have somehow rejuvenated this land. 

Those who died inspire us, and those who live return to lead and transform us.
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Being Frank Rich in the Land of Opportunity

America's status as "the land of opportunity" can be proved by this single fact: Frank Rich gets paid to write columns for The New York Times.

In other nations, a man with no rationality, no moral perspective, no sense of justice nor fairness, would find it nigh on impossible to rise through the ranks to such a lofty perch. He might be able secure work as a mid-level propagandist for a communist regime or fascist dictatorship, but to parade in public as a man of thought and reason -- one of a handful of opinion-shapers for "the paper of record" -- would have to remain a dream if he didn't possess the great gift of U.S. citizenship.

His Sunday, May 4, "Op-Ed" column in the Times (The All-White Elephant in the Room), for example, attempts to liken Sen. John McCain's endorsement by a couple of TV preachers, with Sen. Barack Obama's 20-year relationship with his pastor, the race-bating Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The implication that receiving an endorsement from a celebrity implies the candidate supports everything the celebrity ever said or did is childish at best. Perhaps we should apply the same standard to Hollywood celebrity endorsements, and we should impute to Democrat candidates, all the loony statements and immoral behavior of their famous friends.

In any case, Sen. Obama is not in political hot water because of Rev. Wright's endorsement, but rather because of his long-term, close relationship with this bigoted, conspiracy theorist, to whom the Illinois senator looks for spiritual leadership for himself and his young daughters.

Of course, Frank Rich would have you believe that Sen. McCain takes no flack because he's white, not black, like poor Sen. Obama. 

It's not a real issue, of course, not even to Frank Rich. It's just a springboard to dive into the Democrats' favorite topic this year -- American racism, or more specifically, Republican racism.

Did you know, Mr. Rich points out, that there are no black Republican members of Congress? Ipso facto, Republicans are racists.

Of course, any time a black Republican rises to prominence (Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and J.C. Watts come to mind) blacks in the Democrat party brand him or her as an 'Uncle Tom', because in the modern liberal mind, Black = Democrat, and anything else is betrayal of the race.

Indeed, the Democrat party has done an admirable job convincing people of its love and loyalty to blacks, even as the party promotes programs and procedures that ...
  • denigrate black competence and intelligence (Affirmative Action and a state monopoly on schooling),
  • destroy black families (welfare),
  • create permanent ghettos (HUD Section 8 housing), and
  • not just decimate the black population, for that means killing only 1-in-10 -- the Democrat party actively, passionately pushes policies that target the race for genocide, with white "physicians" slaughtering a full 50 percent of black infants before they ever draw breath.
This is the platform which has made Democrats out of some 75-to-87 percent of black voters. Perhaps, Mr. Rich would prefer that Republicans stop touting freedom, justice, reverence for life, opportunity, self-reliance, community-based solutions and less-burdensome government, and would instead try to woo black voters with the promise of mediocre education to prepare their children for the joys of life on the dole, living in a slum, and avoiding overpopulation by having whites winnow their young from the womb.

Frank Rich laments that we have not yet, in earnest, begun our national conversation on race.

Well, Mr. Rich, let it begin now.
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