August 11th and 12th will mark the seventh anniversary of the “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. You remember, when white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched against removing the statue of Robert E. Lee? Do you also remember what the then current president said in its aftermath? That there were “very fine people on both sides.”
I think that comment still warrants some historical context, as I think it does indicate a frame of mind for some as the vitriol starts in the fight for the presidency, and perhaps democracy as we know it. I’ll let this passage from Rick Atkinson’s book, The Guns At Last Light, that recounts U.S. soldiers coming across the camps in Germany in April and May 1945 provide that context.
“Even war-weary soldiers felt a new sense of purpose. ‘What kind of people are these that we are fighting’ asking one anguished GI. . . . If the answer to that question remained elusive, the corollaries-What kind of people should we be? seemed even clearer. ‘Hardly any boy infantryman started his career as moralist, wrote Lt. Paul Fussell, ‘but after the camps, the moral attitude was dominant and there was no disagreement on the main point.’ A rifleman in the 157th Infantry agreed, “I’ve been in the Army for 39 months. I’ve been overseas in combat for 23. I’d gladly go through it all again if I knew things like this would be stopped.”
Very fine people on both sides, eh?
I don’t think so. And to say otherwise demeans the spirit of those who were truly brave and truly lived up to the real American ideal.
