THE DATE – AT 10:36 A.M. ET:  This date, June 6th, is permanently etched in the memory of those of us of a certain age.  On June 6, 1944, Allied troops, under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, invaded northern Europe, at Normandy.

We know the date.  But, as Victor Davis Hanson said in a television talk last night, young people don't.  It isn't, as Hanson said, that they've never heard of Normandy, or Iwo Jima, or Okinawa.  It's that they aren't even familiar with World War II.  Repulsive changes in our educational system, often forced by "educators" who aren't, have resulted in a dumbing down of the curriculum, and the replacement of real history by pseudo-history.

Hanson explained that there have always been controversies about individual wars and individual battles.  But, beginning with Vietnam, there's been a rejection in self-proclaimed "intellectual" circles, of war itself, despite the fact that war, ugly as it is, has saved us from a multitude of horrors. 

The memories are fading.  The number of World War II veterans declines by the thousands each day.  Who will tell their story?  Who will tell it accurately?

Some years ago, as many of you will remember, an act of corruption occurred at the Smithsonian.  Fashionable "curators" put up an exhibit containing the Enola Gay, the plane whose crew dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  The text of the exhibit was a gratuitous insult to veterans of World War II, suggesting that Japan was merely defending its "sacred empire," a vast distortion of the Japan of the 1930s and 1940s.  Veterans objected vehemently, and the exhibit was ultimately changed.  The upshot?  The veterans, who'd actually been there, were accused of "hijacking history" by The New York Times, whereas the curators were presented as intellectual heroes.

That is the problem.  The problem is not going away.  We, on our side, have been far too reluctant to criticize corruption in education, but we'd better start.  The future of this country may depend on it, and our politeness is out of order.

June 6, 2010