The tendency among English-speaking peoples to forget so easily, even reject, our nations’ histories will powerfully impact our immediate future.

Sir Winston Churchill once uttered an oft-quoted truism: “No nation which neglects its history deserves to survive.” But Churchill came from a different era, before the cancer of revisionist political correctness ate deep into the heart of our national heritage. Be it the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, no English-speaking nation has effectively protected, nurtured or taught the true richness of its historic past and national heritage to its present generation. This is a national sin of huge proportion that is destined to work, in a dramatic reflection of Churchill’s dictum, to the destruction of these nations in their present form.

Yet, to any truly honest student of history, this ought not be a surprise. It has always been so within the Anglo-Saxon nations.

Sixty years ago, on August 14, 1945, the Western Allies declared their ultimate victory in the greatest war in mankind’s history, World War ii. Two weeks later, on September 2, the Japanese forces capitulated to the Allies, General Douglas MacArthur formally receiving the documents of surrender on board the USS Missouri.

Do we remember this history? “But 60 years on,” wrote an Asia Times commentator, “a changing global structure has led Japan to raise its profile as a strong nation on the international stage, second to none of its larger Asian neighbors, according to the Foreign Ministry. As part of new steps in this direction, Japan is working hard to gain a permanent seat in the UN Security Council, amend its constitution to allow military involvement overseas and conduct its own negotiations with Asian neighbors such as North Korea” (Asia Times, August 5).

Since the end of the Cold War, the global geopolitical landscape has undergone changes of potentially seismic proportions. The victors and the vanquished of World War ii are no longer seen within the context of 60 years ago. We are led to believe that the former enemy has done its penance, has been democratized, and has lost any innate urge to tyrannize the global village. The victors, far from seeking to quell any militaristic tendency on the part of such former enemies, now even encourage it, convinced that their former foes are now loyal allies.

Thus we witness the phenomenon of the U.S. and Australian governments supporting, even urging, the Japanese government to change its pacifist constitution in order to legitimize its return as a powerful military presence in the Pacific. Now, despite certain Nipponese pacifist movements, Japan is moving quickly in that direction.

“Given a rapidly changing Asian security scenario wherein China and India loom large as future military powers, Japan has seen fit to take the first steps to carve out a more active role in international defense, according to experts” (ibid.).

Two years ago, joining a small group in Newport, R.I., to observe Victory Over Japan Day (VJ Day) memorializing that victory of now 60 years ago, I was impacted by the fact of just how small the group was who bothered to stop for a moment and remember this day. Sixty years following that great victory, Rhode Island is now the only state of the Union which still publicly recognizes it! No wonder this present generation takes their basic freedoms for granted. When we neglect to mark and memorialize such a day publicly, we invite the early onset of the fulfillment of Churchill’s statement.

On that solemn occasion at Newport two years ago, the memorial address was given outside the city hall by Colonel David Buckwalter. Later, as I interviewed him for the Trumpet magazine, he obligingly handed me the copy of the prepared speech from which he had addressed those gathered at the war memorial in front of the city hall.

Earlier in the day, I had reviewed local press opinion on the continuance of this annual memorial in Newport. It became obvious that there was a strong effort within the state to water down the observance of this Rhode Island tradition, the last bastion of public remembrance of the final victory over tyranny that ended the most bloody war in all of history. Unusual in these liberal, politically correct times, strong opinions to the contrary had, to that point, won out.

“Over the years, several attempts have been made to petition the General Assembly to rename the holiday from ‘Victory Day’ to what some consider the more politically correct ‘Rhode Island Veteran’s Day’ or to the even more politically correct ‘Peace and Remembrance Day.’ Those bills in the state House and Senate died by unanimous votes” (Block Island Times, Rhode Island, Aug. 11, 2001). Thankfully, to that point, there still existed some unanimity on the need to remember this history within the smallest state of the Union. This fact may be a result of the influence of local identities such as Colonel Buckwalter.

Air Force Colonel David Buckwalter (Ret.) is currently a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College in Newport. The colonel’s speech centered on the need for America to remember its history. On the American public’s patent ignorance of history, he had this to say: “We Americans, particularly in our present time, tend to discount history. One need only to watch the Jay Leno show to see a typical ‘person on the street’ confuse World War ii with the Civil War, and such massive ignorance of our past is certainly not a healthy thing. We tend to be so caught up in the present and so ready to ignore the past that we see everything as a 30-second sound bite or the latest breaking news on cnn.”

Expressing a view similar to one Winston Churchill publicized on a much earlier occasion, Colonel Buckwalter declared, “Remembering our history is important for a number of reasons. You’ve all heard the saying that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. While that may be true, I think there’s an even more important reason for all of us to remember. Our history is an integral part of our identity, and without it, we really do not know who we are as a community” (emphasis mine).

The fact that the future of humankind turned on the outcome of World War ii is undeniable. That its history could be so soon forgotten is unthinkable. Yet there are those who, in their mind-boggling ignorance, seek to rewrite the history books, equating the foulness of Hitler’s deeds with those of President Bush; the Nazis’ London blitz with the Allied strategic bombing of Dresden; and the Holocaust with the Balkan war crimes. Minds peddling such nonsense simply lack any sense of perspective and proportion when it comes to historical comparisons, let alone any sense of reality!

But that’s the way it has always been with Anglo-Saxons—short on memory, long on forgetfulness. “Can a maid forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire? Yet my people have forgotten me days without number” (Jeremiah 2:32).

As our former enemies of little more than half a century ago retool for war, should we not at least consider the possibility that we may be inviting the history of that time to repeat itself, yet again, with, ultimately, the far more devastating force of 21st-century technology at their disposal?