To the editor:
I often walk in Pine Grove Cemetery by the monument to veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. On the other side stretching for city block areas are sections dedicated to veterans of previous wars, numbering thousands of white crosses and the tremendous memories that their families have of them and the dedication they gave in serving their country. How satisfying to see the flags on each grave blowing in the breeze signaling remembrance of their noble efforts.
There are also in that area monuments to the Lynn Fire Department and one to the Lynn Police Department highlighting their devotion to the people of Lynn.
I was struck by the recollection of other references in our history to veterans and their service. President Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address proclaimed: “The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here… It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us… that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”
We seem to have arrived at a time in our history that we face a similar challenge. As I look out over the thousands of graves, I don’t think they could envision a commander-in-chief who couldn’t understand the noble tradition “to leave no one behind.” After urging the mob to go to the Capitol to attempt to stop the legal transfer of power, the former president left his own police force in the violent hands of the insurgents while watching it all on TV.
How would a veteran, a member of a fire or police department, judge a commanding officer who refused to send urgently requested backup because it didn’t further his or her political aspirations?
The former president also displayed his disrespect to disabled veterans, prisoners of war, and even to those killed in action, servicemen buried in foreign soil, declaring them all “losers.”
The founders of our nation and signers of the Declaration of Independence, all men of wealth, knew very well the penalty of treason to the Crown if the Revolution was unsuccessful and still they signed it. I wonder how many of our present leaders, searching for power and demeaning themselves in that pursuit, can even understand their intentions.
John Coleman Walsh, Esq.
Lynn
