Words Make a Difference

Words, especially those used by national leaders, make a difference.

The words that President Trump used in three “tweets” on, Sunday, July 14th were especially divisive. This is what he said:

Donald Trump:
“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world [if they even have a functioning government at all], now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements.”

That those in his base would be shouting “send her back!” at his next political rally should not come as a great surprise.

A little more than a week earlier, the President had stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the 4th of July. I wish that he had gone inside and read the words of Lincoln. Lincoln was a President, presiding over a much more divided Nation, then engaged in a catastrophic Civil War. The words of Lincoln in his second inaugural address did not attack, they did not blame, they did not attempt to divide. They were words of prayer, healing and of restoring unity to a torn country, and ended with hope for a better time: 

Abraham Lincoln:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Words make a big difference. They also reflect the character of those who speak them. We need to be healing the Nation’s wounds, not promoting divisions based on our fears or differences. That may be an effective election strategy, but it is not the American way that I was taught. 


Rolland Kidder
This commentary appeared in the The Post Journal on July 28, 2019

Dan Girgis

D-Day is a time to reflect

National World War II Memorial, Washington, D.C.

For the past decade or more, I have been on the Board of an organization, Friends of the World War II Memorial, that helps sponsor events at the National World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C.  Though we co-sponsor five days of national commemoration with the National Park Service, including Veterans Day and Memorial Day, perhaps our biggest event took place this year with the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1944.

D-Day is not an official holiday in the United States. The Post Office stays open, kids go to school and life goes on as usual. Yet, something deep in the American psyche is touched on D-Day. The nation can’t or won’t let it go.

Everything, of course, about what happened on D-Day was big: the largest amphibious attack force in world history, the courage displayed in places like Omaha Beach and Point Du Hoc, the decision to delay the invasion for a day because of the weather, the struggle to get off the beaches in Normandy and begin the liberation of Europe. Freedom itself was at stake and victory wasn’t guaranteed.

But today what seems to motivate its remembrance by Americans is the nostalgia of a better time. A time when Americans were all “pulling on the same oar,” when our goals and objectives were clear and people responded to the call. There is yearning to again recapture that spirit.

It almost seems impossible to conceive of something like D-Day happening again. It is hard to even comprehend such a world-wide conflict and one wonders whether civilized society would have the strength and resilience to rise up and defend itself today if we faced a similar challenge.

One of our Board members, Elliott “Toby” Roosevelt III, great grandson of President Franklin Roosevelt, reflected this year on the occasion of the 75th anniversary suggesting that the nation’s feelings about D-Day relate to the idea of sacrifice:

“When compared to the sacrifices of the men who hit the beaches of France on that day… few of us have given much to merit the freedoms and protections we have enjoyed our entire lives.

- Freedoms and protections we love;

- Freedom and protections that we take for granted; and

- Freedoms and protections which the vast majority throughout history, have never known. 

When we were born, these were simply handed to us.”

Toby Roosevelt has a point. It could be the fact that others sacrificed for the greater good to preserve the freedoms we now enjoy–that makes D-Day so important. Whatever the reason, June 6 has become one of those days when we stop and ponder what it means to be American.

Rolland Kidder
This commentary first appeared in The Post-Journal on June 30, 2019

Jared Short