Honoring their service

Yesterday was Veterans Day, when Americans paused to thank our neighbors who served in uniform. Meanwhile, Saturday was the lesser-known World Freedom Day, which was established by President George W. Bush and marks the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. By extension, it also celebrates the demolition of the Iron Curtain and the end of Soviet-led European communism.

The two days are intimately connected, with World Freedom Day reminding us to thank our veterans for winning the Cold War and the global threat posed by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact.

In our armed services, America’s veterans occupied and protected Europe while containing the Soviet Union. U.S. airmen led the Berlin Airlift in 1948, providing desperately needed aid to the people there. American troops led a multi-national United Nations force pushing back communist North Korea and saving the people of South Korea. America’s military personnel bled to give the people of South Vietnam a chance at democracy, and today, amazingly, we are welcomed back to visit the current-day Vietnam ruled by our former adversary. When Grenada was overrun by communists in 1983 and its leaders called for help, the United States and six Caribbean nations sent troops. When the Soviet Union was unraveling from 1990 to 1991, and the world anxiously watched to see what would happen, the United States did not press its advantage militarily. The United States next galvanized an international coalition to expel Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from Kuwait in 1991.

For the entirety of the Cold War, our airmen, Marines, sailors, and soldiers were a vigilant line of defense against a violent and determined foe.

Over the past two decades, America’s military personnel have fought other foes, from violent Islamists to other terrorists and criminals, all the while warily watching and containing today’s communist threats, most notably a belligerent North Korea and an ever-expanding China.

Who are our veterans? We often first think of the Greatest Generation who defeated the Axis powers and created a new world order with the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan. According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates from last year, a little more than 100,000 of those American veterans of World War II are still with us, with an average age of 98. But they make up just 1% of today’s total number of veterans. According to a Pew Survey, America’s living veterans fall into the following categories of service:

• 7.8 million veterans (43%) served in the past 30 years (Gulf War, the global war on terrorism, etc.)
• 5.6 million veterans (30%) served during the Vietnam War era from 1950 to 1973.
• Approximately 750,000 veterans (4%) are from the 1940s and 1950s (early Cold War, Korean War).

As we thank our veterans for their service, we should also be reminded of just how different the U.S. military is in comparison with the militaries of non-democratic countries. Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes use their armed forces to repress their own people and bully their neighbors. It should not be surprising that aggressive non-democracies with communist roots have some of the world’s largest armies (counting reservists), most notably Vietnam, China, Russia, and North Korea. They use their extensive public and national security agencies against their own people (e.g., secret police, soldiers, and paramilitaries). Moreover, because they threaten their neighbors, they cause other countries to also heavily invest in their national militaries. Ukraine, Taiwan, and South Korea are also among the top 10 largest armies due to the threats from Russia, China, and North Korea, respectively.

What a difference, then, with America’s military ethos. The American people rightly know that our military is a force for global good and our guardian and defender. Americans honor our living veterans because we know they put themselves in harm’s way to ensure the peace and safety of the rest of us at home. This Veterans Day, we honored them—especially that older generation that is fading away, in part because they made possible World Freedom Day and the end of Soviet-led communism. Let’s continue to honor the service of today’s warriors and pray for a new World Freedom Day when the threats from today’s rogues and bullies and terrible ideologies like Asian communism that promote violence join the Soviet Union in the ash heap of history.