Lee Habeeb's excellent piece over at National Review provides a perfect Veterans Day perspective.
Here's how it begins:
Every American should know his name and his story. And, thanks to a great book by Stephen Ambrose — Band of Brothers — and an equally great HBO television series, many do. What millions of Americans don’t know is that Richard “Dick” Winters died on January 2 at the age of 92.
“Son, that is what you call a soldier’s soldier,” my dad, an Air Force man, told me after the epic series ended. And you know how charitable Air Force men are about Army men.
The Washington Post didn’t report his death until January 9, and relegated the story to the obituary pages, rather than featuring a lengthy celebration on page one — which is what Winters’s life demanded. Indeed, we heard very little from the media about this great man’s death, largely because so few in the media actually cared about his life.
If Cher had died, we’d have heard endless stories within hours, with Diane Sawyer, Matt Lauer, Katie Couric, and Piers Morgan all fighting desperately to get the exclusive with Chaz.
Our media is bad, but our schools are worse. Our kids are peddled Earth Day celebrations, and cancer-awareness, drug-awareness, even clean-colon-awareness days. They get sex instruction, diversity seminars, and global-warming tutorials from Al Gore, but Veterans Day, and the stories of men like Maj. Dick Winters — well, that’s just not stuff with which we should be pestering our kids.