During an interview Dick Winters, who you might have heard of from the HBO miniseries “Band of Brothers”, said one of his grandchildren asked him if he was a hero during World War II. He responded that he wasn’t, but he served in a company of heroes. There is a reason that his generation is known as “the greatest generation.” By any measure I can think of he was, in fact, a hero. The United States’ involvement in WWII was an experiment based on the idea that a trained civilian volunteer military could defeat a conscript “professional” military. It is a testament to the success of this experiment that, to this day, there are countries living in freedom that would not, otherwise, have that blessing… or if they did, they would have had a MUCH harder path to that freedom.

We will always owe a debt to those men and boys who fought in Europe and the Pacific, both those who survived and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to purchase those victories. These men, for the most part, were not men who chose to be warriors. Most were men who saw in our country something worth fighting for and volunteered to leave their jobs as farmers, taxi drivers, teachers and countless other jobs to become soldiers. This is why they volunteered. The feeling in the public at the time was so strong that many men who failed to meet the physical requirements and were rejected by the military actually committed suicide.

I say this is why they volunteered. I do not, however, feel this is why they fought. As the name of the miniseries implies, these men became as close, if not closer, than brothers. When the fighting actually started they fought not so much for their country, or for some political idea, as much as for their “brothers” that were fighting with them. Don’t get me wrong. I am not implying that they did not fight to defeat oppression and free conquered people… they did that. What I am saying is something more basic. Something more base, even. They fought because they knew that to fail did not simply mean they failed themselves, or even their country, but they failed the men fighting with them. The men that became brothers to them.

We all have “blood relatives”, but these men also gained their brotherhood by blood… not the blood of genetic ties, but the shared blood spilled by fellow soldiers and the blood spilled by the enemy as they did what was necessary to protect each other and achieve victory. These were heroes, not because of heroic deeds (although there were countless such), but because when the time came to engage the enemy, they fought through their fear to support each other and protect each other, no matter the cost to themselves.

These were soldiers who had full support of their military leadership, all the way up to the commander in chief. They were given a job, and they did it. I have never seen an interview with a WWII veteran where they said “yes, I was a hero.” Every one of them would state that they served with heroes, but were not heroes themselves, even if, as I said, they met every measure of being heroes themselves. To me, this gives credence to the idea that this was, indeed, the “greatest generation.”

Lately I heard someone say “there are no more heroes.”

To me, this is one of the most insulting statements I’ve ever heard, so I want to educate anyone who thinks that way. Our country is full of heroes. It is full of men and women who may have not had any genetic siblings die, but daily mourn “brothers” and “sisters” that are sometimes even closer than genetic siblings that have died in service to our country. If you think the pain of losing a genetic sibling is more painful, or causes more feelings of loss, then you really need to think about the situation. I have a brother and a sister who are both related to me genetically, but my brother has never had to rely upon me to fight a common enemy… he has never relied on me to protect his life while at the same time, he protected mine from that same enemy that was trying to kill us. I do not begrudge him the “brotherhood” he has with his fellow soldiers, and I never will.

Today, our soldiers fight just as bravely, just as heroically, as those soldiers of WWII. And I feel they fight for the same reasons… for their brothers and sisters fighting alongside them. They fight for their families back home. They fight evil where it is found, so they don’t have to fight it here at home where their genetic family lives. THEY ARE HEROES.

There is, however, an astounding difference in the situation today in the nation. Seventy years ago, our political leaders and commander in chief supported those soldiers. They committed to the task before them and, even though they knew the losses that we as a nation would incur, they supported the effort and allowed the soldiers to do what they were trained to do… achieve victory. The rules of engagement for our soldiers in WWII were simple… engage the enemy and destroy them. If someone had suggested to a paratrooper in the 82nd or 101st airborne that they could not fire upon the enemy unless they were themselves fired upon first, they would have laughed in their commander’s face. If you had told a private that landed on Utah beach and fought all the way to Germany that we were going to go ahead and give the country back to the Nazis, they would have thought you were joking. Imagine if we had actually done that… declared victory and then pulled all of our military completely out of Germany… how would the world look today?

When President Obama brags about getting the troops out of Iraq, he is insulting every American that died to liberate that country. Not only is it an insult to those that died, it is an insult to those who fought and lived. We had military in Germany for decades after the war, but people tend to forget that. We are now seeing the gains that were bought and paid for with the blood of our troops being given back to the extremists simply because our president is allowing it to happen.

Yes… I KNOW that the American people are tired of war and don’t want to have our soldiers on another battlefield. NO SANE PERSON WANTS WAR! We don’t want our men and women to go fight in the middle east any more than we wanted them to go fight in Europe and the Pacific, but it doesn’t matter what we WANT… it is a matter of honor and what has to be done. In WWI we pushed Germany back to their border and stopped, then had to fight them again a few decades later because we didn’t do it right the first time. The painful reality is that we DID do it right in Iraq. Whether you agreed with the war or not, you have to admit (as even the President has) that our troops had attained a stable environment in Iraq, just as we did in Germany. The difference is that we completely pulled out of Iraq instead of leaving troops in country as we did in Germany.

Look at the similarities in the two wars. Germany itself did not attack the homeland… ISIS has not attacked the homeland. Germany’s expansion was regional and didn’t directly affect the United States sovereignty… ISIS is a regional expansion, also, and does not (currently) affect the US sovereignty. Germany was invading and conquering nations… ISIS is also invading and conquering nations. Germany declared war on the United States… ISIS has ALSO declared war on the United States. There are more similarities, but these should suffice to get the point across. If we had left the same military infrastructure in Iraq as we did in Germany we would have a much different situation there than we have today.

Now lets get back to heroes. A “brother” that fell in the middle east was no less tragic and painful to his military brothers than one who fell at Bastogne, on Utah beach, or during Market Garden. If you are not familiar with these battles, please look them up, or, better yet, watch Band of Brothers. A hero is simply someone that puts the life of his fellow soldiers above his own life and moves to protect them with all possible means at his disposal up to, and including, laying down his life for them. This soldier is not doing this for his country, for the country in which he is fighting, or even for his commander in chief. He is doing it for the same reason that so many heroes did it during WWII… for his brothers in arms. Does he know fear? Yes, but he fights on anyway because to do less is to fail his brothers and sisters.

So yes… there are still heroes, and I count myself honored to know some of them, and I have seen the burdens of loss they carry every minute of every day for those lost that they counted as brothers…. brothers by blood, but not genetics.

I write this to let them know that they are known. They are honored. They are loved. And no matter what may happen in their lives in the future no one can take away from them that bond that has been fused in conflict and refined in the heat of battle. I pray that God will give them the peace that they deserve and that they have earned in “simply doing their duty”, and in closing, I would like each of them to know that I, for one, will never forget them for what they have sacrificed physically, mentally, and emotionally, and I also consider them heroes.

With Love and Respect,

Michael McGaha,