THE FORGOTTEN MEN OF THE WAR
Shuck, L. E. Jr.
The Forgotten Men Of The War An Ex-Soldier Examines The Victory For Which He Risked His Life By L. E. SHUCK. Jr. FOR four long years, amid great fanfare and ballyhoo, millions of Americans have...
...Our official opinion, as reflected in current officiaracts, is a distinct coolness in the continued support to the efforts, the pain, and the tears which have been spent by millions of Americans in the fight for what had been represented to them as a noble cause...
...My desire is to express the acute anxiety of many a returned serviceman toward the lethargic public opinion which doesn't force a more healthy official opinion—an official opinion which would be more concerned with making some effort, toward attaining some approach to some ideals somewhere in the world of international relations...
...Now, in her use of her tremendous new power and prestige, she appears to be inaugurating an imperialist policy which can make the Romanovs, Napoleon II, and Disraeli appear in history as small-time real-estate operators...
...The energetic movements for freedom and independence of Indians, Burmese, Koreans, Indo-Chinese, and Indonesians, to mention only the better known and better organized, are waiting to be heard in their demands for something fundamental and thoroughly just as their own political and economic freedom...
...It appears not unlikely that the ideals of Fascism have triumphed in the war after all...
...In its tacit support of many of the most selfish demands of the other Great Powers, our Government is giving aid and comfort to imperialism and totalitarianism all over the world...
...In spite of the number of supposed liberals in the new British Government, it is obvious now that their liberalism and devotion to democratic ideals extend only to the United Kingdom...
...I HAVE no desire to make this a mere bit of ax-grinding in the old Army tradition of "griping" about everything which isn't ideal...
...We the people can influence official opinion...
...They are being ignored while we entertain deputations of their unwanted overlords who are virtually blackmailing us for more handouts from American taxpayers—handouts to finance a ruthless crackdown of democratic forces...
...There were a lot of them inspired, remember, by your promises and your speeches—who were killed while carrying out your orders...
...Shall we throw them to the imperialist wolves and let them become victims of the same imperialist ideology from which we were supposed to rescue them...
...They need this counsel and direction just as surely as they need food and clothing...
...IBEGAN by talking of the Forgotten Men...
...America can be faithful to her trust only by maintaining our world leadership, not in any "America can do no wrong" spirit, but rather guided by a virile idealism, at home and abroad...
...We have won the right to leadership as a result of our fantastic achievements in battle plus the prodigious moral and spiritual contribution we made to final victory...
...Only completely irresponsible leaders would throw that leadership away...
...Perhaps you feel the same way...
...EQUALLY important is the struggle of the nations of Southeast Asia for their basic freedom—that freedom which we demanded for all...
...We cannot allow our official opinion to bow to the selfish demands of world imperialisms...
...Others —"lesser breeds of men"—are regarded by them as undeserving of liberty or of any consideration which might interfere with continued British domination of seven hundred million colored peoples and varying large numbers of European and Arabic whites...
...Shall we let them lie as the Forgotten Men of 1945, or shall we remember them by constructive action now...
...It cannot admit that all our casualties and all our efforts were merelv to preserve and to extend imperialism and totalitarianism...
...The people who remained at home were loud and eloquent in expressing their gratitude...
...MANY of us experienced a momentary lift by the outcome of the British election...
...Britain, determined to preserve her empire, and Russia, determined to build one, continue to make a mockery of everything we were assured we were fighting for...
...Truly the international scene makes those of us who survived feel grateful that we did not pay the supreme sacrifice for such lowly aims as are now being carried out by our leaders...
...Millions of oppressed peoples and scores of nationalities are looking to us for guidance and spiritual leadership...
...Today we are painfully slow in throwing our moral influence into the winning of a democratic peace...
...The accepted definition of these "assets" is the domination and exploitation, political and economic, of millions of peoples of all colors who lack sufficient power to resist the greedy demands of the victorious Allies...
...The present groping in the dark and the drifting between the opposing tides of British and Russian ambitions must cease...
...We cannot now back down...
...Our press tends to treat the legitimate struggle of the Annamese for freedom from French domination as if it were an unjustifiable rebellion from justly constituted authority...
...We must remember that they gave their lives to make the world a better place in which to live for all people—not just those in the victorious nations—but people everywhere...
...THE great tragedy to the returning serviceman— only just back from helping to break the German and Japanese stranglehold over large areas of the world —is to read almost daily in his newspaper how the arrogant Allies are fastening their grip on these same areas for equally selfish purposes...
...It is growing late and we must begin our influencing now...
...we were sent out to kill, that we were fighting a war against those very evils...
...These were the men whom you, by your leaders' speeches and promises, and, don't forget, by your draft laws also, sent out to fight for the ideals represented by your country and theirs...
...There was a great deal of patting on the back and much of the "(you) give em hell for me" routine...
...FOR four long years, amid great fanfare and ballyhoo, millions of Americans have ranged thousands of miles from their homes to risk their lives in a war for "freedom and democracy...
...But that hope was quickly battered down...
...Now they appear to be mostly interested in allowing our Allies—Britain, Russia, France, Holland, and their satellites—to grab all the distributable assets they can lay their hands on...
...The news from Europe, from Africa, from the Dutch East Indies, and from French Indo-China tells the same depressing story of imperialism...
...The policy-making leaders of America and the Allied nations seem to have repudiated the lofty pledges and noble sentiments of a few years ago...
...The fact that their hearts and minds were in the fight, just as were yours, does not absolve the responsibility to remember them...
...We do have the moral leadership and the moral power to discharge our responsibilities in the world...
...It has slipped the minds of most people that Fascism is Fascism whether it is carried on in the German language or in the Russian, English, or French languages...
...Since the close of hostilities little but Fascist methods have been in evi-dence...
...But the grim fact is emerging today that the Forgotten Man of 1945 is the soldier who was naive enough to believe that he was risking his life on battlefields far from home for something better than the selfish interests of the major Powers...
...It seems to be accepted as a foregone conclusion by our policy-formers that Indians, Burmans, and Southeast Asiatics in general must remain under British, French, and Dutch domination indefinitely...
...Although even the official propagandists could never dub despotic Russia a democracy, that nation was referred to, during the war, as a "defender of democracy...
...But the council tables of the victors are crowded with British, Russian, and French greedily reaching out for control over smaller nations and overseas empires...
...Today our military hospitals and cemeteries are jammed with men who helped beat Germany, Japan, and Italy...
...Remember the people of Annam and the other Indo-Chinese States had well-developed cultures and historic governments when the French walked in during the last half of the 19th Century and took them over at the point of the gun merely because France wanted some stolea territory to compete with the many British grabs...
...Many a GI was so impressed with this talk that he was leaving for a war that would root out the very causes of war that he began to feel that if he did his bit in fighting the world's ills, those who stayed at home could be depended upon to do their bit when their turn would come to fight for a just and democratic peace...
...Our assignment today is to maintain our hard-won leadership in world affairs, and this we can never do by merely acting as a broker or intermediary between rival imperialisms...
...This revolt is being put down with Lend-Lease materials and, in the final analysis, with American money as well...
...These of us who were with these men when they died can't let them down now...
...The world waits for America to carry to the councils of the Allies the ideals which made us great—our ideals of freedom and representative democracy...
...They entered the worldwide struggle against the ideas and aims of Fascism and dictatorship with glorious phrases against imperialism, racialism, and power politics ringing in their ears...
...Yet we are told, as...
...It has been especially depressing to us to watch the British and Russians wrangling for control of Europe and the seaways and gateways to empire, without any thought for the aspirations or rights of the peoples concerned...
Vol. 9 • October 1945 • No. 42
