Written September 20, 2001
Very soon after the realization that we were under attack, analysts, government officials and people on the street began comparing the events of September 11th to Pearl Harbor. In most respects the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are not like Pearl Harbor at all. Hawaii was not a state at the time. The entire world was at war and most people felt it was just a matter of time before the United States would become engaged. Pearl Harbor was directed against military targets. The pilots who carried out the attack did not seek to die in the process, thereby guaranteeing their swift passage through the gates of heaven. Casualties were far fewer at Pearl Harbor than they were in the attacks on the 11th of September. In most respects Pearl Harbor was nothing like the attack on New York and Washington.
In perhaps one respect however, we should all hope that this attack on America was exactly like Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor galvanized us. Admiral Yamamoto knew as much, saying "We have awakened a sleeping giant and have instilled in him a terrible resolve". After America entered the war, Winston Churchill, who had been valiantly trying to maintain the spirit of the British in the face of a tightening German stranglehold on Europe, told FDR "I have never felt so sure about final victory". With last week’s attack on the United States and the world, (possibly as many as 2000 of the people who perished were citizens of other countries) the doorway is open for a president and a generation to achieve greatness that might equal that of our fathers and grandfathers, the Greatest Generation.
Events do not make a man great. Instead, they give him the opportunity to achieve greatness. It is no coincidence that our three greatest Presidents were those who successfully brought us through the most difficult times in our history. George Washington won for us our freedom and presided over the Constitutional Convention that created the foundations upon which our nation is built. In a world where monarchy still reigned supreme and where armies usually decided who governed, he choose to retire from almost absolute power, not once, but twice. Abraham Lincoln saved us from ourselves. He took a country ripped apart by slavery and a growing economic chasm and made it whole. FDR saved the world. Taking office during the greatest economic crisis to ever face our country, he initiated a program to put America back to work and once we were in the war, he mobilized the country to beat back the incarnation of evil on three continents. Certainly our history would have been different given another man standing at the vanguard of our nation at any one of those times.
It is the situation that allows the man to live up to the greatness within and inspire us to do the same. The Greatest Generation is just that because they saved the world. In the face of two foes who had appeared almost invincible, they fought, they sacrificed and they triumphed. They fought to the death because there was no tomorrow and everyone knew it. When faced with evil incarnate, they summoned the courage to fight for freedom, to fight for America and to fight for good. No one can know what the world would be like had WWII not occurred, but it is possible that the honor, courage and extraordinary feats which characterize the Greatest Generation might never have shown themselves. While they may have spent the 1940s building better cars, more dams and growing greener crops, the awe in which we rightly hold them might not exist. World War II gave us the Greatest Generation because its members were just that, precisely when we needed them to be. Now it is our turn.
Given the amorphous enemy we face today, one who has no country, no borders, no capital and no honor, it will take a truly great president to lead us through to victory. Over the last thirty years our attention spans have shrunk tremendously when it comes to war. We want to win quickly, easily and bloodlessly. This war will be none of those things and it is up to George Bush to carry the torch that will help us find our way through. To a degree unlike any previous war, this one will be fought in the shadows of the intelligence world, in the arena of political diplomacy, in the world of instantaneous information exchange, and on battlefields far away and in our communities. George Bush’s challenge is to inspire in us the strength, courage and tenacity we will need to defeat this enemy. Our responsibility is to live up to that challenge while maintaining the values, spirit and ideals that define America. If he succeeds, he will no doubt go down as one of our greatest presidents. If we succeed, we may have earned the right to walk beside the heroes of the Greatest Generation.
When all is said and done, President Bush must do that which he has taken an oath to do and that which is stated in black and white in the first sentence of the Constitution. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." In a world beset by incoherent ramblings, wishful thinking and absurd exhortations, those words provide a touchstone of moral clarity. By upholding that pledge and dealing with Saddam Hussein, President Bush will lengthen the flame of American liberty that shines as a beacon of hope, freedom and greatness to billions of people around the world.
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