Heroes and helpless ones *UPDATED*
I don’t know how it is that I never got around to watching it before, but last night marked the first time I ever saw that classic 1941 movie Sergeant York. It’s a biopic, starring Gary Cooper as the eponymous Sergeant York, who was the most decorated hero of World War I. Unlike most biopics, a little internet research shows that the movie hewed remarkably close to Alvin York’s real story. York was born into an isolated, poverty stricken region of Tennessee. He was a hard drinking, lazy man who was the despair of all who knew him. He was also an expert rifleman, which wasn’t very surprising to those living in the valley that Daniel Boone first discovered.
When he was close to thirty, his friend’s death in a barroom brawl, coupled with his growing friendship with a local pastor, turned York from his wild ways and towards God. He settled down with a vengeance, giving up all forms of vice. He also fell in love.
Things were starting to turn around for Alvin York when World War I started. Based on genuine religious convictions (“Thou shalt not kill”), he tried to get himself exempted from the draft on conscientious objector grounds. Because his church was a small, local one, however, the government refused to recognize it (unlike the Quakers, for example), and he got drafted anyway. After some serious discussions with the Major and Captain of his unit, he determined that serving his country in war time was not an affront to his Biblical beliefs and became a committed soldier.
Once in France, York was pitched into some major fighting. His unit was part of a larger surge that was designated to storm a ridge that the Germans held. It started off as a turkey shoot, with the Americans as the turkeys, being mowed down by German machine guns. In the heat of battle, York’s group ended up separated from the rest, at the back of the German position. With most of his men dead, York was nevertheless able to sneak up on the Germans and, using the sharpshooting skills honed in the hills of Tennessee, start picking off the machine gunners one by one. Eventually, York picked off at least 9 gunners, with the remaining 8 men in his unit accounting for another 20 or so. They then convinced the Germans to surrender, and marched back to American lines with 130 German prisoners in tow.
Although York was by no means the single-handed avenger quickly portrayed in American popular culture, there was no doubt that it was his skills that (a) got the ball rolling and (b) enabled his men to continue what he had started in terms of taking out the Germans. His was an extraordinary act of courage and skill, and one that was fully recognized at the time. Although he originally received only a Distinguished Service Cross, this was quickly upgraded to the Medal of Honor. The French gave him a Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor, and Italy and Montenegro awarded him the Croce di Guerra and War Medal.
Along with the military awards came other offers. Hollywood, Broadway, the Vaudeville circuit, corporate America — they all requested his services, with offers totaling into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. York rejected all of these offers, believing it was wrong to turn the sacrifices of war into his own personal money machine. Instead, he returned to his little valley, and set up an agricultural college as well as a Bible school.
I note Sergeant York’s service here, not only because it’s Memorial Day, but because of the way American popular culture celebrated his heroism. America was incredibly excited and inspired by the story of a small town boy, a redeemed sinner, who went on to become one of WWI’s greatest heroes. This was the American success story and people cared about it deeply.
Nowadays, the MSM does not report success stories. They don’t tell about the men and women who achieve in Iraq. Instead, they confine themselves to the stories of those who were the unlucky ones — the victims of gunshots and IEDs, as in this New York Times Memorial Day story.
As for me, you know that I applaud and respect every single American who willingly puts his or her life on the line, in peace time and in war, so that my family and I can live in safety and freedom. I am deeply aware of and grateful to those who pay the ultimate price by giving their lives for my freedom and safety. That holds true for those who escape death, but who nevertheless suffer any injury, from the minor to the grievous. I am not cavalier about those men and women. Nevertheless….
Nevertheless…. Does it strike you as strange that our popular culture cannot bring itself to celebrate the vast majority of our armed forces who have achieved success, whether that success is measured by a stirring gun battle or an extraordinary act of bravery, or just by serving a term of duty unscathed? To the MSM, the war is measured only by loss and pain and death. I’ve come to feel, more and more, that this is not a sign of respect for those who make the ultimate sacrifice, but that this attitude serves more as a form of emasculation, to erase the signs of success and leave American’s generally, and our military specifically, with a drab feeling of loss and failure.
As for me, on this Memorial Day, I give my deep, deep thinks to all American troops, regardless of the nature or outcome of their service.
UPDATE: By the way, I am aware that Memorial Day is when we honor those who fell in the service of this country, while Veterans Day is when we honor all who have served and are serving. I got started on this post, though, when I realized after watching Sargeant York that the MSM treats every day as Memorial Day, with an obsessive focus on fallen soldiers, and no focus whatsoever on the warriors who walk among us.
In this regard, it seems worth pointing to a wonderful Power Line post that highlights Obama’s inability to grasp the difference between the fallen and the walking, and his penchant to do precisely what the media does — treat our troops like helpless, mindless victims, rather than like the pro-active volunteer force that it really is.
