Guest Post by James Diehl
Between 1941 and 1945, tens of thousands of American men responded to the grave threat posed on the world by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. For nearly four years, these heroic men put their lives on hold to fight against evil on the battlefields of Europe, Asia and Africa.
They were selfless men who, almost to a man, felt they had a responsibility to defend the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.” They’ll tell you today that they’re not heroes, but that they were merely doing their jobs.
Those beliefs and values are a big reason why men and women of that era became known as the greatest generation in history, as Tom Brokaw so eloquently stated a few years ago. The men who survived the horrors of World War II often withstood a dozen or more close calls with death – they are heroes, as are the ones who never made it home.
It makes me shiver to think what life would be like today had the Allies not won the war. America would certainly be a very different place in the 21st century, as would the free world.
Think about it for a second. What if the Axis had won the war and imposed their will on the United States, mandating a similar fate to the one the Allies imposed on Germany in the post-World War II era?
