America – and the Free World – Owes Everything to Our Veterans

What is it that we honor when we mark Veterans Day each year?

First and foremost, we pay tribute to the brave servicemen who, throughout our nation’s history, have put their lives on the line to defend our country and our freedom. Simply put, they are the ones to whom we – and the entire free world – owe everything.

From Yorktown to Gettysburg, Midway to Tora Bora, our armed forces have made it possible for America to not only survive, but to become the greatest country on Earth. We must strive, always, to uphold the nation they sacrificed to defend – a nation like no other in history, to preserve our God-given rights, and which stands as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to the entire world.

The anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall comes just two days before Veterans Day – and the confluence of these two momentous occasions often causes me to reflect on my days as a young cavalry officer in West Germany.

One memory, in particular, always stands out: It was the end of the Cold War, though we did not know it then. Late one night, I picked up the phone to hear the news that Soviet forces were getting ready to flood across Europe. As I floored it to headquarters, I wondered: Was it just a drill, or was I headed to the front lines of World War III?

Thankfully, that war never came to pass – and just a short time later, the Wall came tumbling down and communism went with it. This was due, in no small part, to President Reagan’s wise assessment that building up American hard power was essential to prevail over the evil empire.

While many on the Left will grudgingly give our country credit for defeating the Nazis, they tend to be dismissive about America’s resounding victory over communism. Perhaps since there was never a climactic hot war between the two great powers of the late 21st century, it’s easier to pretend that America didn’t “win” as such.

Communism certainly contained the seeds of its own destruction, but terrible systems can last for centuries if unopposed. It was America’s willingness to stand up for freedom – backed up by hard power and our economic superiority – that enabled us to win. And without the veterans who held the line against Russian incursions into Western Europe and beyond, who knows how much longer Soviet tyranny might have survived – and how much of the free world it would have destroyed?

President Reagan put it best when he said, “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people.” A strong America that upholds its values and deters its enemies is the best guarantor of global freedom – and an America that honors its commitments to our veterans by cherishing the values they fought to defend is one we can be confident will endure for another 250 years or more.