Defending Historic Moments

Sunday, my friend, my husband and I drove out to visit the Veterans Memorial located in Fort Peck, Mont. This is an absolutely wonderful monument, well planned out, lovely view and does a terrific job of honoring our veterans. Visiting this monument immediately brought to the forefront how extremely upset myself, and others, have been with what is going on with our historic monuments.

Why is history of our past an embarrassment? History has made us what we are as well as helped us learn from past mistakes. And history does have a habit of repeating itself.

I was born during the years of WWII, grew up learning of the hardships endured by neighbors, family and friends that served our great country, some never to return home. These men and women volunteered to sacrifice their lives and fortune to guarantee our freedom.

The Veterans Memorial is an absolutely lovely, well planned out memorial, honoring veterans of all wars from World War I and II, the Korean War, Vietnam conflict, and the most current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. I may have missed conflicts in which Vets fought and lost lives, and for this I apologize. The thing we must not forget is that all of these veterans were willing to make the extreme sacrifice for their country.

With all the news regarding destruction of monuments of the past, I thought of how appalled I would be if this wonderful monument were to be defaced or destroyed by peoples (fellow U.S. citizens) that felt we should have never gotten involved in these current and past conflicts. Regardless of one’s personal thoughts we should not let these historic things be destroyed. They were erected as tribute to someone’s loved ones although it may have been many generations ago. I have a difficult time imagining that any culture would feel differently about destruction of memorials of their past.

If the sight of such memorials makes one feel discriminated against, etc., then just maybe these protestors need to “pull up their big girl panties,” get a job, volunteer, help the young or elderly, spend time with family, rather than spending time and money worrying about how to destroy historic items.

If these things truly annoy you, if you have the time and need to think about offensive history, let me suggest you find more to do. Find a different route to work, or maybe just find work, visit a different park, vent your feelings by scrubbing a floor on your knees, planting flowers or something constructive. I am ashamed that my home State of Montana has elected to follow the herd and more so, that US citizens are even allowed to consider this destruction let alone carry it out.

Yes I am a Senior Citizen. My ancestors did not have the time to worry about such trivia, as they were too busy keeping food on the table. Remember, no food stamps, no hand outs, entitlements, or government health insurance for them and they were still willing to give their lives to preserve this great nation.

We need to all voice the concerns we have about preserving history and work on keeping America great.