Peace in our time: Reflections on turning 80.
I was born in 1943, in the midst of a World War; Nazi Germany controlled all of Europe, including Ukraine; the Japanese occupied Southeast Asia. Nazi submarines were starving Great Britain. It was not clear to anyone that good people would prevail.
The most advanced nations of the world had turned their technology and their best minds to murder, killing over 70 million people. How did we arrive at such a low point in human history?
If you had asked my father when he returned from Europe in 1945, he would have told you that the answer lies in the expression “not my problem.”
In 1932, when Japan attacked Manchuria, the prosperous Western nations stood by and did nothing. They stood by again in 1935, when Italy occupied Ethiopia; stood by in 1936, when the Nazi army entered the Rhineland; and, in 1938, actively participated when Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister of Great Britain, signed the Munich Agreement, allowing Germany to annex Czechoslovakia.
“My good friends,” Chamberlain announced when he returned home, “… I believe it is peace for our time. … Now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.”
Twelve months later, Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, and World War II had begun. Our fathers and mothers discovered the grave consequences of sleeping in the face of unchecked aggression.
Whether Republican or Democrat, it is our duty to protect the peace they earned for us. This requires a strong and expensive military presence wherever democracy is threatened, whether in the Ukraine, the Middle East or the Americas.
Mark F. Potter
Sag Harbor
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