THE SOLDIER FROM INDIANA

Seventy-five years ago, from when I typed “seventy-five years ago” the Allies landed 400,000 troops on Normandy’s shore to begin the extirpation of Germany’s Nazi occupation from France and Europe. Having been working on our Annual Freedom Service, while also remembering it was the anniversary of the D-Day Invasion, I thought of an interview I had done of one of our then living WWII veterans for our 2012 service. I had set the camera up and hit record and begun to ask some catalytic questions to get the 90+ year old veteran talking. For over an hour and a half he talked, taking me back sixty-eight years as he relived his participation in that invasion. As an engineer, he was in the second wave the second day. His unit had come to repair roads and bridges for even more armor and infantry divisions. He spoke of vestiges of the German army, still fighting in a rearguard effort to slow the Americans, firing upon his unit. Describing how he and his fellow soldiers pushed through those infamous Normandy hedgerows, he began to weep when he mentally pushed past one hedge row and encountered a vivid memory. I tell it as closely as I can recall: “We pushed through one hedge and came upon one of ours. He was lying on his back. His clothes half torn off and pillaged through.” The tears began to stream more profusely. “The Germans had stolen his things. They had gone through his wallet and left only some photos lying around. He was from Indiana.” I suppose he had deduced that from some identifying paper the Germans found valueless and had abandoned. At this point, the old veteran began to almost sob unable to speak for a moment. Then he continued: “I saw the photo of his wife and it hit me that she didn’t know yet that her husband wasn’t coming home. He would never go home.” That soldier from Indiana died fighting for the freedoms we so enjoy. So many in America today, filled with vitriol from the indoctrination of liberal falsehoods, use the very freedom he died to procure to protest against our country and the tenants of freedom upon which it was founded and are embedded within its constitution. They go further and champion the very thing that the soldier from Indiana and so many others died fighting—socialism. The official name of the Nazi party was “National Socialist German Workers' Party.” That’s correct, “…Socialist…Party.” Arguably, Hitler and his henchmen and political operatives were far-right radicals; yet, they appealed to the masses to gain power by espousing the tenants of socialism, employing the language of socialism, and promising socialism. The German people believed they would get socialism. Hitler did not really believe socialism, though he postured as if he did. I believe it is no different with many of the modern politicians from the left who appeal to the indoctrinated youth and older liberals with the promise of socialism. (Alarmingly, over 40% of Americans now see socialism as a good thing.) I have my doubts that many of these politicians, many who are presidential candidates, really believe in socialism, per se. They have just found a way to appeal to a growing base. Sadly, today’s far-left socialism leads to the same totalitarianism that Hitler’s far-right Nazism did. One can go so far left he has come full circle to the far right. Yet, the founders, the soldier from Indiana, and his many fellow troopers gave their lives fighting for freedom from totalitarianism. Sadly, many professed Christians commit the same travesty: They espouse and embrace the very things from which Jesus died to save them. Increasingly, the modern Christian accepts homosexuality, adultery, pre-marital sexual relations and a host of other sins for which Jesus died. What ugly irony. People without qualms celebrate the things the soldier from Indiana and Jesus from Nazareth died to free us from.

THE SOLDIER FROM INDIANA

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