Rewriting history
Bob McEwan paid a visit to the new World War II Memorial in Washington this week and "got an unexpected history lesson."
"Since I'm a baby boomer, I was one of the youngest in the crowd," Mr. McEwan tells Inside the Beltway. "Most were the age of my parents, veterans of 'the greatest war.' It was a beautiful day, and people were smiling and happy to be there. Hundreds of us milled around the memorial, reading the inspiring words of Ike and Truman that are engraved there."
Mr. McEwan made his way around to the memorial's "Pacific" section, where a group had gathered to read the determined words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he announced the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked."
One woman, says Mr. McEwan, read the words aloud: "With confidence in our armed forces — with the unbounding determination of our people — we will gain the inevitable triumph."
Suddenly, the woman became visibly angry: "Wait a minute," she told her husband. "They left out the end of the quote. They left out the most important part. Roosevelt said — 'so help us God.'... I know I'm right. I remember the speech."
The couple shook their heads and walked away.
As Mr. McEwan puts it, "The people who edited out that part of the speech when they engraved it on the memorial could have fooled me. I was born after the war. But they couldn't fool the people who were there. Roosevelt's words are engraved on their hearts."
Those exact words were: "With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounded determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God." |
