​The 2/5 infantry battalion (2d Battalion, 5th Regiment) — the most highly decorated battalion in the U.S. Marine Corps — has a motto: Retreat, Hell!  Its members embrace this credo in honor of Major Lloyd W. Williams, who, as company commander of the 51st at the Battle of Belleau Wood during World War I, refused to withdraw at the urging of a French colonel and countered, “Retreat, hell!  We just got here!”  Williams later led an assault that routed the Germans at the cost of most of his men, but their bravery became legend for generations of warriors who followed.

America has always been blessed with an oversized helping of heroes.  Open up a detailed atlas of the United States, and you will be amazed at the tens of thousands of streets, hilltops, lookouts, and bodies of water named after American heroes who sacrificed themselves so that others might live and prosper.  You can walk into any small town in the country and learn about the heroics of some stranger whose accomplishments and daring were as deserving of national recognition as those with well-known names.  

It is easy to get hypnotized into a state of unnerving fatigue when “woke,” anti-American propagandists try daily to rewrite history, but this is a land of giants.  In your blood and in your spirit stirs the untamable defiance of American greatness.

That’s why none of the new-world-order crap that keeps raining down over our heads ever completely dispirits me.  Mass immigration, out-of-control crime, central bank chicanery, the World Economic Forum’s dystopian, technocratic oligarchy — let those Marxist globalist bastards do their worst, and let’s see whose vision for America ultimately prevails.  To no-one’s surprise, the tyrants are acting tyrannically.  Every few generations human freedom comes under attack; beating back the wolves forever lingering at the gates remains the eternal price of liberty.

We humans are natural storytellers.  Long before the invention of written languages, oral traditions connected groups to their ancient history.  Poetic bards were seen as quasi-magical priests who safeguarded the past through the recitation of epic tales.  Wise elders recorded the stories of their tribes in woven tapestries that they could interpret for young members.  Throughout human existence, stories of heroes and villains, sacrifices and triumphs have been the most valuable treasures passed from one generation to the next.

As beneficiaries of these stories, we are prone to embrace past glories without fully appreciating the pain and heartache that accompanied victory.  It is easy to celebrate American Independence without considering the hard-fought battles, economic tribulation, and general uncertainty of those times.  We honor the accomplishments of that revolutionary generation that included our Founding Fathers but struggle to recognize that their achievements came slowly over several decades.  

Because past troubles are often buried and forgotten, we can be misled in the present to view all hardship as a harbinger of future defeat.  Imagine telling George Washington — whose military setbacks far outweighed his victories — that surrender to the British was inevitable.  Imagine telling Thomas Jefferson or any of the signers of the Declaration of Independence that the miseries they bore for their principles were too great a cost for the defense of human liberty.  Imagine telling a 2/5 Marine that “blood and guts” glory could somehow be earned through quick retreat.

Heroic sacrifice is not often pretty.  It is filled with the kinds of violence and indignities that Hollywood never wrote into John Wayne’s movies.  Try reading E.B. Sledge’s With the Old Breed to get a glimpse into the hellscape of the Pacific Theater during WWII.  Try digesting Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried to grasp an inkling of what warriors endured during Vietnam.  Pick up Paul Fussell’s two classics, The Great War and Modern Memory and Wartime, for a sober portrait of the life of a common soldier during both global wars.  The things we celebrate, we often take for granted.  Those who fought the battles, who trudged through mud and muck and vermin, who were tasked with doing horrendous things, and who carried those burdens for the remainder of their lives — they know the cold, soul-crushing price of victory.

Only when we engage our past and attempt in some small way to understand the sacrifices of all those Americans who came before us can we put today’s troubles in proper perspective.  Whatever hardships come our way, they have been borne and beaten before.  Whatever obstacles land in our path, they have been climbed, repelled, or vanquished.  If these feel like challenging times, that is because great moments in human history require great men and women to dig in and persevere.

There is a reason why English-speakers faced with difficulty are fond of repeating an apocryphal Chinese saying: “May you live in interesting times.”  In our hearts, we know that times of danger and uncertainty and adventure are both a blessing and a curse.  During periods of peace, people live their lives free from the turbulence of cultural upheaval, technological revolution, and political conflict.  Yet it is also true that some of the world’s most important ideas, books, musical compositions, and social awakenings have come in the midst of absolute chaos.  

Walking along a tightrope high above an ocean of flames focuses the mind and fills the soul with purpose.  Sometimes it is only by moving through fire that great and meaningful change can ever be forged.  Our colonial ancestors certainly lived in interesting times.  Many endured pain, poverty, and loss.  Yet they also forged the greatest nation in human history — one founded on the revolutionary principles that all men are created equal and that legitimate governments exist to preserve human liberty.  They walked through the fire and changed the world.  That is their legacy.

What will our legacy be?  Will it be one of quiet acquiescence and timid surrender?  Will millions of Americans run at the first sign of real trouble?  Or is it possible that many will remember that in their blood and spirit stir the ingredients of sterner stuff?  A lot of people claim that America is dying.  I think it could more accurately be described as hibernating.  There is an energy in our country.  It grows daily, even if it remains mostly hidden in some dark cave.  Like any slumbering beast that awakens, it will hungrily devour anything that gets in its way.

Don’t fear the interesting times.  Decades after they have come and passed, our descendants will marvel at all that happens now.  If Americans alive today succeed in preserving liberty for the future, those born tomorrow will be forgiven for failing to appreciate the cost.  They might even celebrate what we achieve without knowing our personal agonies.  That is how great things come to be — by equal measures grit, sweat, tears, blood, and determination.  Only afterwards do those who benefit from those efforts mistake triumphs as foregone conclusions.

If nothing else, be thankful that you come from a place filled with heroes who have stared down empires, made the impossible look easy, and found the will to unite even after civil war.  America is a special place because it is home to exceptional people.  

One of those exceptional people was Irving Berlin, one of the greatest songwriters of all time.  A Jewish immigrant from czarist Russia who reached Ellis Island when he was five, Berlin rose from poverty to stardom.  In celebrating the end of WWI, he wrote a heartfelt tribute to the country that had given him everything.  He prayed: “God bless America, land that I love / Stand beside her and guide her / Through the night with the light from above.”

May we always follow that light.  Amen.  

I am grateful for American Thinker’s readers and the wonderful community that thrives here.  May you all have a joyous Thanksgiving.

Image via Pxhere.