By State Representative Dave Belton (R-Buckhead)
(753 words)
This week we honor those who have died, the fallen.
It is fitting that we remember.
I have traveled around the world, and the thing that strikes me most in my many travels is how truly blessed we are to be Americans. Americans live in a land of plenty. Our lives are peaceful and we enjoy the blessings of liberty, yet very few of us realize how uncommon our blessings are.
Democracy is fragile, freedom is rare and despots and dictatorships are the tendency of man. Most of the world, even today, lives under the boot of tyranny. China, far from becoming more democratic, is actually more autocratic than before, as well as Russia, North Korea, Iran, Syria and most of the Islamic extremists who are trying to create a new Caliphate. The vast majority of people who have ever lived on this planet lived in want and tyranny. In fact, if you added up all the billions of people who have ever lived, less than 2 percent of humanity has ever known freedom. Never mind the “one percent” that many malign; each and every American is the luckiest 2 percent of humanity.
Worse, almost every country has been conquered at one time or another. Almost every nation knows the horrors of suffering under a foreign master. Thanks to the American veteran, we have never been conquered. In fact, since the end of World War II, our country has basked in a time of blessings that is now referred to as Pax Americana. Thanks to the “greatest generation,” we’ve enjoyed 75 years of stability similar to the historic eras of Pax Romana and Pax Britannica. We’ve had small wars, of course, and we mourn every soldier that fell in those wars – each honored, hallowed and precious. But the true victory of those brave fallen can be measured by how very few we lost.
It is almost incomprehensible, but the 20th century was by far the bloodiest in all of history. Sixteen million people died in World War I, 60 million fell in World War II, Joseph Stalin murdered 20 million of his own citizens and Mao Zedong murdered another 65 million. Compared to these epic figures, the 100,000 Americans we’ve lost since World War II is blessedly low.
What did our veterans win? They won the rights of minorities, the rights of women, your religious freedom and your right to vote. They ended Nazism and crushed Communism. They defended Capitalism, the economic engine that doubled the prosperity of everyone on the planet, and defended racial tolerance for most of the people on the planet. Most importantly, they purchased lasting peace for you and me.
As a Navy and Air Force pilot stationed overseas, I often felt the pang of loneliness and wondered why I was fighting in distant jungles and deserts. The reason is quite simple: Americans fight on other’s shores so that aggressors don’t fight in America.
In a perfect world, there’d be no war. But there will always be men who want what other men have. To think otherwise is to ignore all of history.
“In a world where the lion lies down with the sheep, it is important that America remains the lion,” said former Texas Senator Phil Gramm.
The American soldier is the grantor of peace, not only for our own citizens, but for the entire world.
Theodoric the Goth, the barbarian who extinguished the Roman Empire, famously remarked, “Every Goth wants to be a Roman; no Roman wants to be a Goth.” The quote is ironic in many ways, but mostly because even Theodoric the Goth, the pitiless destroyer responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands, understood what he had destroyed and rued what had been lost.
The Romans were far from perfect, but the collapse of their own civilization, which had once enjoyed a Pax Romana, ushered in a thousand years of misery we now know as the Dark Ages. If the American soldier were ever to fail, the globe would collapse into a ruthless period of ruin, anarchy and poverty.
Remember,
“It’s the VETERAN, not the preacher, who gives you freedom of religion.
It’s the VETERAN, not the reporter, who gives you freedom of the press.
It’s the VETERAN, not the poet, who gives you freedom of speech.
It’s the VETERAN, not the politician, who gives you the right to vote.”
Our flag still waves o’er the Land of the Free because of the sacrifices of our brave.
It is fitting that we remember.
Representative Dave Belton represents the citizens of District 112, which includes all of Morgan County and the eastern side of Newton County. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2014 and currently serves as Chairman of the Military Affairs working group and as Secretary of the Interstate Cooperation Committee. He also serves on the Economic Development & Tourism, Education and Energy, Utilities & Telecommunications committees.
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