One Man Standing Between Us & Evil
Special Report
Bulletin From Ben
By Ben Stein Published 8/18/2005 1:42:28 AM
A few humble theses:
There is such a thing as evil in this world and such a thing as good. It is simply not true that all is relative and similar. Beheading Iraqi civilians with a saw on the Internet is absolutely evil. Helping children in Mosul get pure water is absolute good. Sending homicide bombers to blow up elementary schools at a kibbutz is evil. Treating the children of your enemies in the finest hospitals in Israel is good.
In Europe and Asia and South America and in much of North America, this idea is unknown. All is relative and the only point is to get away another day without having the evil ones attack you. Appeasing the terrorists, ignoring them and their instigators, pretending that the good guys are the bad guys -- all of these are now standard practice in the capitals of the world, and in the academies of America and in the Democratic Party at high levels.
There is one great man standing between us and this capitulation to evil: that man is George Bush, and he has two great allies, Tony Blair and John Howard. If we did not have George Bush at the helm, if we had a moral relativist like Kerry or Gore, we would even now be playing the same appeasing games as Chamberlain played with Hitler, and which France and Germany, Spain and Italy, Norway and Belgium, tragically, even Canada, play with the enemies of the human spirit.
By a great providence, we were sent George Bush. In his mind, there is such a thing as evil. Terrorism is evil. Racism is evil. The murder of unborn babies is evil. Torturing a totally innocent Terri Schiavo to death is evil. He sees it, acts on it, actively works not just to get along day by day, but to keep evil at bay and to overcome it where it can be overcome. As time goes by, I come to realize that George Bush, with all of his faults, is the spiritual heir to Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Winston Churchill, to the late Pope John Paul II. How unbelievably lucky we are to have him, and how grateful we should be.
The terrifying part is that he will be gone from power in less than three years. Then what? The evil will remain in men's souls, and who will be there to fight it? We have to start thinking right now of who sees and recognizes the difference between good and evil and start energizing ourselves to make that man or woman President. George Bush's shoes will be terrifyingly difficult to fill.
Update: Here's a letter Ben Stein wrote to his son on his son's eighteenth birthday.
My son turned 18 a few days ago, and of course he is far too busy playing computer games and driving the Jeep we got him for his birthday to listen to me and my preachments, but let's just pretend that he's listening. If he were, this is what I'd say.
Dear Tommy,
How the time flies. How easily I can recall taking you home from the hospital and telling your mother, my wife, all of my hopes and plans for you. It did not dawn on me just how little my plans had to do with your plans, but in the hope that maybe that will change with age, here I go again.
I could tell you to get enough sleep, to eat properly, to study hard, to not drink a lot of caffeine, but I have already told you those a million times already, so I'll just tell you three things about your world.
First, your grandfather on my side, the redoubtable Herbert Stein, was not born comfortable the way you were. He had to work his way through college washing dishes at a fraternity at Williams College that did not admit Jews. He did it without complaint and when I asked him many years later if he was angry about the slight, he said, "I didn't have the luxury of feeling angry. I was just happy to be able to work my way through a great college in the great depression." That is good sense and gratitude in action, and I hope you will learn from it. My father was later an avid supporter of Martin Luther King, Jr., and that's part of his legacy as well -- maybe from washing dishes.
Second, your grandfather on Mom's side, Colonel Dale Denman of Arkansas, was a major war hero in World War II and in Vietnam. I once asked him what it was like before he went into combat. He answered, "I prayed I would not be a coward." His prayers were answered. He fought the SS hand to hand and won the battle and won a Silver Star. This is an example of heroism that makes us all in his family both small and large. I hope you are never in combat but I hope you will always remember his prayer and his heroism.
Third, try to think some day of the number of men and women who died and lost limbs and sanity so you could be a free man. From Saratoga to Iwo Jima to Cho-Sin and now in Mosul and Ar-Ramadi, think of all those who gave up their lives so you could be a free man, because now you are free, and you are a man. They died for you and me, and we have to think every single day what we did to be worth dying for. Did we comfort the lonely? Did we visit the sick? Did we lift up the downtrodden or did we just live for our own selfish luxury? There are so many things to do and I hope that some day soon you will start coming with me to the VA hospital to visit the patients.
I don't expect you to learn all of this right away. It takes years, but there is a time to start and the time is now. Enjoy yourself, but you, like all of us, have a debt to repay to those who went before and who are fighting now.
God bless you, Tommy, and Happy Birthday.
Update #2: And here's Ben's tribute to his father-in-law.
Col. Dale Denman, Jr., US Army Retired, died on September 3 in Heber Springs, Arkansas, eighty two years after he was born in Prescott, Arkansas, about one hundred and fifty miles south. It might seem like a small distance to travel in a lifetime, but in a way, his journey was as big as the story of America and the story of freedom.
In 1940, Col. Denman went to West Point. Duty, honor, country. He wore cadet gray, then graduated to Army blue in 1944 and went off to fight in France and Germany. I once asked him what he was thinking about the night before he was committed to combat. “I prayed that I would not be a coward,” he said matter of factly.
His prayers were answered. He fought hand to hand against the SS and won. As a forward observer, he ran through sniper fire and machine gun fire to call in artillery to rescue his company when it was pinned down. He participated in the liberation of at least two concentration camps. He got pneumonia fighting in the cold, refused to be evacuated and kept fighting. He came home with the Bronze Star, many other medals and a certain way of looking at the world.
“In the Army, we hate war more than anyone else,” he once told me just before I married his daughter in 1968. “We hate it because we’re the ones who get killed.”
“Why do you do it then?” I asked him.
“ So you and my daughter won’t have to,” he said.
After the war, he served in dusty bases out west and on the front lines of the Cold War in Germany. He went on maneuvers in bitter cold getting ready to fight the Red Army. He was away from his family for months on end. That was his job. Duty, honor, country.
When he was in his forties, he went to Vietnam and served as an advisor to South Vietnamese troops. For extraordinary combat bravery, including more hand to hand combat, he won the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Medal. He kept them. When he talked about his friends who died in Vietnam, he cried.
He retired to an idyllic place called Eden Isle, in Heber Springs, Arkansas. He did Meals on Wheels for the elderly, spoke about war at the local high school, interviewed young people for West Point, was treasurer for decades of the First Presbyterian Church, cared for his dying first and second wives. He never said no to any request for help.
They had a memorial for him at the Presbyterian Church in Heber Springs two weeks ago. He had written out in longhand his plans for the service. He wanted his family and friends to remember that he lived his life by the Army code: Duty, Honor, Country. A small honor guard from the Veterans of Foreign Wars handed his widow a folded flag “...with the thanks of a grateful nation...” and fired five volleys and then a man played Taps. A veteran handed Col. Denman’s widow, Sue, a folded flag, “with the thanks of a grateful nation.”
This is a story of one man in a small town in Arkansas. But let’s be clear about this: Without Col. Denman and the men and women like him, we would have no freedom, no country, no Constitution, nothing worth having. We owe him and his fellows our lives. From Cadet Gray to Army Blue to the sky blue of eternity. Rest in peace, Col. Denman. You are my hero.
Bulletin From Ben
By Ben Stein Published 8/18/2005 1:42:28 AM
A few humble theses:
There is such a thing as evil in this world and such a thing as good. It is simply not true that all is relative and similar. Beheading Iraqi civilians with a saw on the Internet is absolutely evil. Helping children in Mosul get pure water is absolute good. Sending homicide bombers to blow up elementary schools at a kibbutz is evil. Treating the children of your enemies in the finest hospitals in Israel is good.
In Europe and Asia and South America and in much of North America, this idea is unknown. All is relative and the only point is to get away another day without having the evil ones attack you. Appeasing the terrorists, ignoring them and their instigators, pretending that the good guys are the bad guys -- all of these are now standard practice in the capitals of the world, and in the academies of America and in the Democratic Party at high levels.
There is one great man standing between us and this capitulation to evil: that man is George Bush, and he has two great allies, Tony Blair and John Howard. If we did not have George Bush at the helm, if we had a moral relativist like Kerry or Gore, we would even now be playing the same appeasing games as Chamberlain played with Hitler, and which France and Germany, Spain and Italy, Norway and Belgium, tragically, even Canada, play with the enemies of the human spirit.
By a great providence, we were sent George Bush. In his mind, there is such a thing as evil. Terrorism is evil. Racism is evil. The murder of unborn babies is evil. Torturing a totally innocent Terri Schiavo to death is evil. He sees it, acts on it, actively works not just to get along day by day, but to keep evil at bay and to overcome it where it can be overcome. As time goes by, I come to realize that George Bush, with all of his faults, is the spiritual heir to Abraham Lincoln, to Martin Luther King, Jr., to Winston Churchill, to the late Pope John Paul II. How unbelievably lucky we are to have him, and how grateful we should be.
The terrifying part is that he will be gone from power in less than three years. Then what? The evil will remain in men's souls, and who will be there to fight it? We have to start thinking right now of who sees and recognizes the difference between good and evil and start energizing ourselves to make that man or woman President. George Bush's shoes will be terrifyingly difficult to fill.
Update: Here's a letter Ben Stein wrote to his son on his son's eighteenth birthday.
My son turned 18 a few days ago, and of course he is far too busy playing computer games and driving the Jeep we got him for his birthday to listen to me and my preachments, but let's just pretend that he's listening. If he were, this is what I'd say.
Dear Tommy,
How the time flies. How easily I can recall taking you home from the hospital and telling your mother, my wife, all of my hopes and plans for you. It did not dawn on me just how little my plans had to do with your plans, but in the hope that maybe that will change with age, here I go again.
I could tell you to get enough sleep, to eat properly, to study hard, to not drink a lot of caffeine, but I have already told you those a million times already, so I'll just tell you three things about your world.
First, your grandfather on my side, the redoubtable Herbert Stein, was not born comfortable the way you were. He had to work his way through college washing dishes at a fraternity at Williams College that did not admit Jews. He did it without complaint and when I asked him many years later if he was angry about the slight, he said, "I didn't have the luxury of feeling angry. I was just happy to be able to work my way through a great college in the great depression." That is good sense and gratitude in action, and I hope you will learn from it. My father was later an avid supporter of Martin Luther King, Jr., and that's part of his legacy as well -- maybe from washing dishes.
Second, your grandfather on Mom's side, Colonel Dale Denman of Arkansas, was a major war hero in World War II and in Vietnam. I once asked him what it was like before he went into combat. He answered, "I prayed I would not be a coward." His prayers were answered. He fought the SS hand to hand and won the battle and won a Silver Star. This is an example of heroism that makes us all in his family both small and large. I hope you are never in combat but I hope you will always remember his prayer and his heroism.
Third, try to think some day of the number of men and women who died and lost limbs and sanity so you could be a free man. From Saratoga to Iwo Jima to Cho-Sin and now in Mosul and Ar-Ramadi, think of all those who gave up their lives so you could be a free man, because now you are free, and you are a man. They died for you and me, and we have to think every single day what we did to be worth dying for. Did we comfort the lonely? Did we visit the sick? Did we lift up the downtrodden or did we just live for our own selfish luxury? There are so many things to do and I hope that some day soon you will start coming with me to the VA hospital to visit the patients.
I don't expect you to learn all of this right away. It takes years, but there is a time to start and the time is now. Enjoy yourself, but you, like all of us, have a debt to repay to those who went before and who are fighting now.
God bless you, Tommy, and Happy Birthday.
Update #2: And here's Ben's tribute to his father-in-law.
Col. Dale Denman, Jr., US Army Retired, died on September 3 in Heber Springs, Arkansas, eighty two years after he was born in Prescott, Arkansas, about one hundred and fifty miles south. It might seem like a small distance to travel in a lifetime, but in a way, his journey was as big as the story of America and the story of freedom.
In 1940, Col. Denman went to West Point. Duty, honor, country. He wore cadet gray, then graduated to Army blue in 1944 and went off to fight in France and Germany. I once asked him what he was thinking about the night before he was committed to combat. “I prayed that I would not be a coward,” he said matter of factly.
His prayers were answered. He fought hand to hand against the SS and won. As a forward observer, he ran through sniper fire and machine gun fire to call in artillery to rescue his company when it was pinned down. He participated in the liberation of at least two concentration camps. He got pneumonia fighting in the cold, refused to be evacuated and kept fighting. He came home with the Bronze Star, many other medals and a certain way of looking at the world.
“In the Army, we hate war more than anyone else,” he once told me just before I married his daughter in 1968. “We hate it because we’re the ones who get killed.”
“Why do you do it then?” I asked him.
“ So you and my daughter won’t have to,” he said.
After the war, he served in dusty bases out west and on the front lines of the Cold War in Germany. He went on maneuvers in bitter cold getting ready to fight the Red Army. He was away from his family for months on end. That was his job. Duty, honor, country.
When he was in his forties, he went to Vietnam and served as an advisor to South Vietnamese troops. For extraordinary combat bravery, including more hand to hand combat, he won the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Medal. He kept them. When he talked about his friends who died in Vietnam, he cried.
He retired to an idyllic place called Eden Isle, in Heber Springs, Arkansas. He did Meals on Wheels for the elderly, spoke about war at the local high school, interviewed young people for West Point, was treasurer for decades of the First Presbyterian Church, cared for his dying first and second wives. He never said no to any request for help.
They had a memorial for him at the Presbyterian Church in Heber Springs two weeks ago. He had written out in longhand his plans for the service. He wanted his family and friends to remember that he lived his life by the Army code: Duty, Honor, Country. A small honor guard from the Veterans of Foreign Wars handed his widow a folded flag “...with the thanks of a grateful nation...” and fired five volleys and then a man played Taps. A veteran handed Col. Denman’s widow, Sue, a folded flag, “with the thanks of a grateful nation.”
This is a story of one man in a small town in Arkansas. But let’s be clear about this: Without Col. Denman and the men and women like him, we would have no freedom, no country, no Constitution, nothing worth having. We owe him and his fellows our lives. From Cadet Gray to Army Blue to the sky blue of eternity. Rest in peace, Col. Denman. You are my hero.
posted by Rope Burns at 8/18/2005 11:56:00 PM
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