The NRA has released a new video featuring Veteran U.S. Navy SEAL Dom Raso titled “Why We Stand.” The video juxtaposes imagery of the WWII generation’s courage and sacrifice, with footage of Shelia Jackson Lee and others kneeling in protest of the American flag, as Raso asks a clear question: do we deserve the WWII generation’s sacrifice? “Did they fight too hard for freedom? Did they sacrifice too much,” says Raso. “Did they make life in America so safe, so easy, so completely removed from difficulty and hardship, that we lost our understanding that freedom is guaranteed to no one and can be lost in an instant?” In a clear statement, the video ends with a transition of WWII posters that featured unity amongst soldiers, to a recent Sports Illustrated cover featuring athletes, players and owners linking arms.
I haven’t always embraced history. But when I walked through a World War II museum the other day, it changed my life forever.
I saw the dead bodies of Americans piled up on Omaha Beach, jackets filled with bullet holes and the sand stained with blood. Four hundred nineteen thousand four hundred American soldiers gave their lives to win World War II.
That’s 419,400 men willing to charge at a hail of gun fire knowing damn well they would die … willing to give their lives for as little as an inch of forward progress for the men behind them, the country behind them and the idea behind them.
One life for an inch—for freedom.
As I walked through that museum, I couldn’t help but wonder what those men would think about us today. I even found myself asking a question that should send shivers of guilt down all of our spines: Did they fight too hard for freedom? Did they sacrifice too much? Did they make life in America so safe, so easy, so completely removed from difficulty and hardship, that we lost our understanding that freedom is guaranteed to no one and can be lost in an instant?
Image Credits: NRA