How soon we forget days … that meant everything to those who came before. Our parents and especially our grandparents knew what May 8 was, why it mattered, and how it affected them. You may not recall what May 8 is, but perhaps a refresher is worth the time.
May 8, 1884, was important, of course, because it was the birthday – now 140 years ago – of Harry Truman, our 33rd president, poker and piano player, plain talker, pain in the side for Thomas Dewey, who twice thought he would be president, 1944 and then losing in an upset to Truman in 1948.
Born in Missouri, Truman served almost eight years, taking the reins when FDR died in early 1945, making the fateful decision to save a million American lives – likely many Japanese – with the atomic bombs, ending World War II in the Pacific, August of that same year.
But May 8 was something else also, arguably more important than Truman’s birthday. On May 8, 1945, the war in Europe – World War II in the European theater – came to an end, after six long years, four for the US, and Germany’s unconditional surrender the day before.
Princess Elizabeth, who would be coronated within seven years and become Great Britain’s longest-serving queen, was 19, had worked under military trucks during the war, and just mingled with the British public that night, calling it “one of the most memorable nights of my life.”
After so much death, so much uncertainty, personal loss for Americans and our beleaguered Allies, the constant anxiety – my mother recalls all pulled blackout curtains every night of the war – the long nightmare was over.
The cost of that war to America – as to our Allies – was incalculably high, yet we had entered determined to win, did as we said we would, and saved Europe and the world. We started with one division to Nazi Germany’s 60 divisions.
We started after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, on December 7, 1941. American boys – and girls – knew exactly who they were, and measured themselves by honor, love of nation, town, family, and freedom. They did not want to go to war, but they rose and went without hesitation.
Talking with WWII vets and their onetime girlfriends, who became their wives, I have been forever humbled, and in awe of the way they lived their lives. They did what had to be done, did not look back, and did not forget those who never came home, or the agony of the loss, but they rallied and went on.
Self-pity was not in their vocabulary, not after what they had all been through, a few short years after the Great Depression, with losses high and 16 million boys in uniform, and they were boys.
They were – in a word – grateful, eternally and unforgettably grateful, quiet in their remembering, not boastful or interested in talking about what might have been, fathers, sons, brothers, husbands lost. They did not dwell, did not want sympathy, and knew the grand and terrible idea of God’s will.
They tended to live their lives, most of them – those who went away and those who suffered when those they loved went away – as if every day mattered because they knew it did.
They knew about things like honor, sacrifice for someone else, looking after each other, love made deep by seeing how deep love gets, and what one human will do for another when only they can.
They knew men in uniform going to a neighbor’s door, or their own, or thought about that when the reports came back when the town suffered another loss, 450,000 boys killed, never coming home.
And then, showing the kind of conviction that deepens love for others, for those lost and those not lost, reminding all of what it takes to win, and why freedom calls us all – they watched as the Allies moved on the Nazis in North Africa, Italy, up from Sicily, through Anzio, Rome, Florance, the Po Valley, then in at Normandy, by ships, and from the sky, fighting to live, ready to die.
Finally, on May 8, 1945, they learned to breathe again, they strained to remember what life was like without war, what living was like when freedom was nearly lost, regained at cost, and treasured. No one alive that day ever forgot it – and they hoped, in that way, people do, that no one ever would.
But lives are passed to lives, years become decades, children grow and have children who have children, and people forget. They forget what it took, what it cost, how dear freedom is, how dear freedom always is, and why our defense of the good … makes us great. Remember on all days, but especially May 8. That is V-E Day, Victory in Europe Day, for which so many once knelt to pray.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
