Speech by WWII D-Day Veteran and Morocco Country Director Everett Woodman on July 4, 2004



My thoughts of D-Day 60 years ago prompt thoughts of why wars should and should not be, and includes deep feelings for all families of soldiers, sailors, airmen who long ago gave their lives for America. Most recently I think today of the sadness of Iraq - and join you in tribute to the unselfish service our forces are still performing over there with honor and courage - pray that we can say sometime soon, honestly this time, “Mission accomplished.” I am glad that Saddam Hussein is no more a worry. He was brutal and good riddance - but to get rid of him we betrayed our ideals and sold our soul to the totally un-American concept of “preemptive attack deterrence” - the most transparent rationalization of Pentagon double talk and in that unprovoked invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation we forfeited our claim to the moral high ground. There is no need to multiply illustrations of why much of America is now recognizing that the Iraq adventure was a colossal tragic mistake – and when history fully appraises this worst military and diplomatic blunder in memory it will portray properly a man so hungry to be a war time President that he could taste it. “Bring ‘em on” he said.

Speech by WWII D-Day Veteran and Morocco Country Director Everett Woodman on July 4, 2004

July 4, 2004 Ceremony at Hanover, New Hampshire

I am glad that we are not closing this event with a bugle sounding taps, for it is not a military funeral.

It is our celebration of freedom - our pledge to be worthy.

And while a holiday is all around us, this gathering on the green is not a high-five conqueror’s party.

We gather in justifiable pride, knowing likewise that we have as much to mourn as to memorialize.

We weep for those we have lost, and combat veterans will best understand that kind of loss, for they had loved each other in that bond of danger and death.

I am especially mindful of that ultimate patriotism for exactly four Sundays ago I was at the American Military Cemetery, at Omaha Beach in Normandy where 9,387 headstones mark our permanent presence on “that terrible and Sacred Shore.”

My thoughts of D-Day 60 years ago prompt thoughts of why wars should and should not be, and includes deep feelings for all families of soldiers, sailors, airmen who long ago gave their lives for America. Most recently I think today of the sadness of Iraq - and join you in tribute to the unselfish service our forces are still performing over there with honor and courage - pray that we can say sometime soon, honestly this time, “Mission accomplished.”

Permit me now to pursue that theme - quietly - because the subject is delicate, and I am sensitive to that.

I say this carefully:

I am glad that Saddam Hussein is no more a worry.

He was brutal and good riddance - but to get rid of him we betrayed our ideals and sold our soul to the totally un-American concept of “preemptive attack deterrence” - the most transparent rationalization of Pentagon double talk and in that unprovoked invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation we forfeited our claim to the moral high ground.

There is no need to multiply illustrations of why much of America is now recognizing that the Iraq adventure was a colossal tragic mistake – and when history fully appraises this worst military and diplomatic blunder in memory it will portray properly a man so hungry to be a war time President that he could taste it. “Bring ‘em on” he said.

It will also reveal how every episode of this dreadful undertaking , from the constantly concealed civilian death toll, to American torture of prisoners, to the hastily arranged secret and superficial ceremony conveying “full sovereign authority” to Iraq, how every aspect of this long charade has been slanted and sold by shameless rationalizations – semi-plausible sounding reasons for doing what should never be done, and not doing what should be.

Now we look ahead and our prayer is that our young people and their children will develop the courage and wisdom to find victorious living in ways other than war - that their lives in a contracting world will eliminate fear of cultural differences - the mindless prejudice that often twists proper patriotism into negative nasty nationalism that turns otherwise civil societies into warring tribes.

Teach our children to have faith in humanity and to know the dignity of all human beings. Reaffirm America’s basic belief that all people are created equal - that we all are children of the Universe. There is no nonsense about that - it is universally obvious and fundamentally American.

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: July, 2004; Peace Corps Morocco; Directory of Morocco RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Morocco RPCVs; Country Directors - Morocco; Speaking Out; Iraq

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