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Sun. Jun 06, 2004

June 6, 1944

A year ago tomorrow, I asked “What Was Yesterday?“

No, it wasn’t the day after Martha’s indictment. It wasn’t Day Two of the Post Raines era at the New York Times. Those were just the vastly important stories the media was focusing on.

Did you see any of them mention what else yesterday was? Probably not. Martha and Howell have more impact on your life.

Of course, by June 6, 2004, they will have settled to their true level of importance: no one will care about either of them.

And so here we are on June 6, 2004, and Howell and Martha still make low level appearances in the media … but no one really cares, except those looking for a new punch line. And though last year it was hard to find any mention at all of the anniversary of D-Day, this year, it’s all over the place. And some people aren’t exactly thrilled by it:

A cultural establishment that (on the whole) doesn’t give a damn about World War II or its veterans thinks it can undo a half-century of indifference verging on contempt by repeating a silly phrase (“the greatest generation”) like a magic spell while deploying fulsome praise like carpet bombing.

The campaign is especially intense among members of the 1960s generation who once chose to treat all present and former soldiers like dirt and are willing at long last to risk some friendly words about World War II veterans, now that most are safely underground and guaranteed not to talk back, enjoy their celebrity or start acting like they own the joint. A quick glance at the famous Hemingway B.S. detector shows the needle pegged at Maximum, where it’s been all week, from Memorial Day through the D-Day anniversary run-up.

David Gelernter, WSJ: “Too Much, Too Late“

Well. I’m in Professor Gelernter’s target audience (baby boomers), and I remembered D-Day last year. Unlike the vast majority of the media. I’ve never treated “all present and former soldiers like dirt,” quite the opposite. I’ve spent a fair amount of time studying the history of WWII, and reading the first hand accounts of those who were there (as well as hearing them). So when you said “this nation has behaved boorishly, with colossal disrespect,” your broad brush painted over a lot of folks who do not nearly fit the charge, and you did so … boorishly, with colossal disrespect.

Your article also distracted everyone from what they should be thinking about today. Not you, or your smackdown of another generation, or your attempt to compare WWII with Iraq, or your junior high school poetry reading, or your buddy’s book you can’t get published.

Today is not the anniversary of any of those events. But that’s all Professor Gelernter’s article is about.

I’m not going to try and compete. There’s no way I can write anything that does justice to the 3,000 Americans who died trying to cross 300 hellish yards of Omaha beach. But I won’t chastise others who don’t remember them. I did that last year. Nor will I chastise those who do remember them, for not doing it to my personal satisfaction.

That’s just too perverse for a day such as today.