As a Christian, I realize that Planet Earth will never experience true “freedom” until our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Messiah, returns to set up His Kingdom. When that blessed miracle will happen no one knows—only our Heavenly Creator knows. But until God’s Will is accomplished for mankind generally, and our nation specifically, we as imperfect human beings must live with a less than perfect, or incomplete, concept of freedom—of the political and social kind—in terms that our finite minds can grasp.
If you’ve read my articles in the past, you know that I discuss the concepts of freedom, liberty, and responsibility quite often. But please indulge me as once again I plunge into the “nostalgia” of the past—at least MY past, a time when these concepts were better understood, more highly treasured, often fiercely defended, and discussed with educated and concerned peers who believed in those same values. Perhaps some of you, like me, are still around to pass some of these valuable concepts to younger generations, who are learning the life lesson that FREEDOM IS NOT FREE, NOR WILL IT EVER BE! We ALL need to learn that lesson, and always reflect upon it.
I’ve long been a student of World War II. I can remember some of that gruesome conflict, from about 1943 on. It’s my “favorite war”. Historical “revisionists” today assure us that much, perhaps even “most” of what we’ve been taught as truth about the history of WWII is wrong—is inaccurate—is fabricated—is “incomplete” at best, and has been presented as truth by those who wanted to conceal their real goals for humanity. These are the people who subscribe to certain “less accepted” versions of history, or what some refer to as “conspiracy theories”, a term originated back in the late 1940’s or early 1950’s by the “globalists” and “Marxist sympathizers” of “our” Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). They, of course, are free to believe what they choose to believe, as am I. I have doubts over much of their “versions” of history, and my “recollections” are what I choose to believe, and always will.
I had an uncle who served in the U.S. Navy during that war (I only met him once, in 1944, when he visited his sister, my Mom, in his U.S. Navy uniform). I had an elderly and dear friend at church for many years who landed on Utah Beach during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 and told me personally about his experiences, especially of his coming across the gruesome Nazi death camps in liberated Europe. My wife had an uncle who was killed in a B-25 crash in Greenland in 1943. So we know something about what happened during those years! But is my “truth” about these events actually the truth?
Are those “alternate” versions of history real history? Those who know with certainty are long dead, as are many of those historical “revisionists”, some number of whom may have harbored their own political “agendas” for their own reasons. As Pontius Pilate asked Jesus before having Him crucified: “What is truth”? That’s still a pertinent question. But I digress, for that’s not the essence of this article.
I recall, with much nostalgia, the military parades that would be staged for our people right after the end of that conflict, and for a year or so after we and our allies were victorious. Right along our main street (Detroit Ave.), near our house in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio would march hundreds of servicemen, with their rifles and with a band leading them, followed by military vehicles—Jeeps, trucks—all bristling with machine guns. It was a glorious time to be a little kid. All of us were so proud to be Americans, even if at age eight to ten we didn’t fully understand what war meant, or what caused it. With our unbanned toy rifles and pistols (cap guns, of course) we “killed” our share of Nazis and Japanese in our play during those war years that have just about receded into the mists of history.
There were no politically correct mantras being shrilled then by the haters of freedom who accused us of being more responsible for the war than were our enemies. Everyone was proud of our country in those days, and none of us cared one bit for our enemies’ point of view, but only in defeating them as quickly as possible and resuming a normal life. Even though most of my neighbors and fellow Americans undoubtedly unwisely supported the leftist/progressive racist, President Franklin Roosevelt and his unconstitutional machinations over his 3+ terms, we all were proud to be Americans and we all loved our country. We all foolishly believed that our President could do no wrong as he led our forces to victory. Today I realize how wrong we all were. I do deeply miss those halcyon times when we believed that our government would never lie to us. How naïve we were!
I remember two great, yet controversial, leaders from those desperate war years: General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) of the U.S. and Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) of Great Britain, both of who contributed much to victory over that era’s “axis of evil” (Japan, Germany, Italy). Today I fear that many of our countrymen, especially our younger ones, may never have heard of either of these special men, for learning about patriotism and great leaders from our past doesn’t seem to be in favor in our government controlled, politically correct centers of non-educational indoctrination, loosely called public schools—i.e. “Centers of Induced Ignorance”.
The current “wisdom” being spread among our gullible fellow citizens is that both of these leaders were serving only the interests of their globalist masters of that era, especially Churchill. I can’t comment with certainty about that, but both were great leaders in a time of darkness when they were desperately needed. Nothing else mattered to us at that time.
MacArthur and his forces stood almost alone in those dark days of early 1942, when it became apparent that defending the Philippines (an American possession at the time) was a hopeless task, and President Roosevelt ordered MacArthur to evacuate to Australia with his family to organize a new resistance against Japanese aggression. Most Americans my age remember that MacArthur pledged to the people of the Philippines: “I SHALL RETURN”! In 1944 he did, and after much bloodshed, that land was liberated and freedom was restored.
“NEVER GIVE IN! NEVER, NEVER, NEVER!”
Great Britain, in those dark days when survival of that nation seemed in doubt, rallied around Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his defiance of the brutal Nazi hordes during the (air) Battle of Britain in 1940, when he boldly reminded his people that, “Never in the history of the world have so many owed so much to so few”, referring to the Royal Air Force’s victories over the German Luftwaffe (the Nazi Air Force). He also cautioned the world: “Never give in—never, never, never. In the great or small…never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force, never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
And he and his countrymen never did, for Brits had real grit and courage in those days, traits that, sadly, have been virtually destroyed by British socialist policies and British liberals’ propensity for idiotic political correctness and serious restrictions on free speech, and turning their once-great nation over to the horde of 7th Century Primitives who will soon convert the United Kingdom into a repressive Islamic hell hole, along with much of the rest of Europe. The United Kingdom of today is not the Britain of “the greatest generation”. Unfortunately, neither is the United States!
LEXINGTON’S FIGHTING PREACHER
Our America has produced many unique men and women who accomplished what had previously been considered impossible. Let me tell you about one brave and determined man from our nation’s early history. Except for patriotic historians, he has almost been forgotten today, but he made a real difference in his time, for he was a Preacher—a proclaimer of the Gospel of Christ. Preachers should always make a difference in their society, and many of them have over the centuries. Have you heard the name, “Rev. Jonas Clark”, before? I’ve written about him previously in The Times Examiner, and I’ve been to his home just off the historic “village green” in Lexington, Massachusetts, twice over the years.
As a country, we owe a lot to Rev. Clark, because if it weren’t for him and his dedication to both God and Country, the U.S.A. might never have existed. Jonas Clark was a well known man, for he was the Pastor—or ‘Parson’—of the little farming village of Lexington. Being well educated, he was perhaps the most influential man in his village, and many of the citizens of Lexington were members of his church, which was Protestant (the denomination is thought to have been of the Congregational Church government system, which was begun by the Plymouth Pilgrims, and “Calvinist” in its doctrines).
On the night of April 18, 1775, Rev. Clark was having dinner in his home with John Hancock and Sam Adams, two of the most influential men in Boston politics, both of whom were prime instigators of our Glorious American Revolution. This was, of course, the night that Paul Revere (with several others) made his famous ride, warning the countryside: “to arms, to arms--the regulars are out”. Revere eventually made it to Rev. Clark’s home in Lexington (he was captured and arrested by a British military patrol later and had his horse “confiscated”), where he warned Hancock and Adams that the British military were looking for them to arrest them, and then were to proceed to Concord to confiscate a large cache of weapons and ammunition.
Clark was asked: If war came, would the men of Lexington fight against British tyranny? I think that I would have liked Rev. Jonas Clark, for instead of saying, “I’ll have to pray about it”, or “ask my deacons or elders what I should do”, he replied: “I have trained them for that very hour.” The village pastor was the organizer of the local militia group, led by one of his Deacons, Captain John Parker (who died of tuberculosis the following September). The very next day, April 19, 1775, the “shot heard ‘round the world” was fired right near his church. I’ve stood several times on that very spot. The eight men killed at that initial confrontation with tyranny were probably all members of Rev. Clark’s congregation. About a year later, to commemorate that historic event, this stalwart pastor preached about British oppression and about the dead members of his church, and in great anguish included the statement that we as Americans must never forget: “From this day will be dated the liberty of the world!”
The struggle for American freedom pretty much began in a church and the first shots were fired almost next to that same church! How appropriate. However, this desire for freedom began long before that day, with courageous pastors who were not afraid to speak out on the great issues of freedom, and about oppression and tyranny. Rev. Jonas Clark was one small part of what was called, “The Black Regiment”, because of the black robes these pastors wore in their pulpits. We can still read many of their sermons that thundered throughout New England and the Southern Colonies regarding the evils of governmental tyranny. Would that we had thousands of pastors, priests, and rabbis like Clark in our time, all demanding righteousness and repentance and a rebirth of freedom. From that day, indeed, would date the resurgence of liberty throughout our land.
I STILL REMEMBER THE WW11 SONG: “THE WHITE CLIFFS OF DOVER”
I opened this article by discussing my memories of WW11, perhaps the last time that almost all Americans were united in a common cause. There was a wonderful and patriotic song composed during those dark early days of that terrible war, when the Brits were almost alone in resisting Hitler’s Nazi hordes, and the specter of their defeat was ominously apparent. The song was: The White Cliffs of Dover, written in November, 1941 by two Americans---the music’s composer, Walter Kent, and the lyricist, Nat Burton. This was one of the most popular songs of that era in both Great Britain and in America. As a little kid, I heard it played often at our house, being made most famous in England in 1942 by the late, great Vera Lynn, as she sang it to British troops, and also made into a top hit in the U.S. in 1942 by the incomparable voice of our own late, great Kate Smith.
The White Cliffs of Dover are real chalk cliffs on the coast of England. During those truly dark days of 1940, during the seemingly endless bombing of England by the Nazis, many of the British people sent their children out into the countryside to safe places to escape the wrath of the barbarians and their relentless bombing of London and other British cities. This song was an important part of my childhood, and was a tribute to the “brave hearts” of mankind in England, and later in the U.S., who fought in that terrible war. I urge you to enter “The White Cliffs of Dover” on your browser, and listen to EITHER Vera Lynn or Kate Smith (preferably both) singing it. You’ll be listening to history if you do. Here are the lyrics—perhaps they’ll again give Americans comfort in this, our time of facing our own “barbarians”, both the noisy foreign ones, AND especially the really dangerous domestic kind:
“There’ll be blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow, just you wait and see.
There’ll be love and laughter, and peace ever after,
Tomorrow, when the world is free.
The shepherd will tend his sheep,
The valley will bloom again,
And Jimmy will go to sleep, in his own little room again.
There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow, just you wait and see.
The American lyricist, Nat Burton, was not aware that “blue birds” were NOT native to Great Britain, but it’s the sentiments that count. SOMEDAY, when the world, and especially Great Britain, are free once again, perhaps there will be “bluebirds” flying over those white cliffs of Dover. I can hardly wait!
The White Cliffs of Dover, England
