America Must Continue to Heed the Lessons of the Battle of the Bulge |
As America soon celebrates its 250th anniversary, it would be wise to look back to understand what allowed a small collection of colonies on the edge of the world to rise to the great power it became.
This year marks the 81st anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, which began on Dec. 16, 1944, and ended a month later. It was one of the largest military operations in American history and is rightly recognized as a great Allied—especially American—riumph that led to the final collapse of the Third Reich and the end of World War II in the European theater.
Memory of the war is fading. I don’t mean that Americans no longer think of World War II. Sometimes it seems like the only historical event people think about when evaluating national or world politics. Comparing every politician to Hitler and every international situation to 1939 cheapens the meaning of the war and its complex beginnings.
But there are great and important lessons to be kept alive beyond the surface level pop history.
We must nevertheless never forget what it took to create the “post-War world” that was often so favorable to the American people. Too often the lessons of the war applied today only relate to the leaders at the top, to the Franklin Delano Roosevelts and the Neville Chamberlains. As important as these men and leaders were to the course of events, the war was much bigger than that.
At the Battle of the Bulge, the heaviest fighting took place on Christmas as German units pressed hard to break through Allied lines, reach the Meuse River, retake........