On Nov. 11, 2021, Veterans Day, I will be 97 years of age, uncommonly blessed to have lived through exactly one-third of the history of this glorious republic.
I lived on Academy Street [in Presque Isle] in 1953-54, and am a charter member of the Presque Isle Country Club. I lived on Loring AFB from 1956 to 1963 as a Department of Defense employee.
Seventy-seven years ago, I and others of my generation fought a foreign enemy in Okinawa, the final battle of WWII, to preserve freedom and justice for future generations. But I’m no hero. Tens of thousands of America’s heroes are buried in cemeteries here and in 16 foreign countries.
I vividly recall the surge of pride that I felt when my ship returned from a deployment in the Pacific War Zone and passed under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, like a Roman soldier told to come home from battle either with his shield or upon it.
I am also unusually fortunate to have degrees from three American institutions of higher learning. But I would not last half a day on many campuses today. I would probably use the wrong pronoun, intrude on someone’s private space or deny that a boy can become a girl.
Leftist character assassins slander me and millions of patriotic Americans as “white supremacists” or “domestic terrorists” because we revere our Judeo-Christian heritage, celebrate America’s founding or resist cancel culture. They despise this country and everything it stands for. They consider me and other like-minded citizens as pariahs.
If I sound like a conspiracy theorist, see the latest memorandum from the Biden Justice Department’s lawless threat against American parents who dissent too vocally at school board meetings about what is being taught to their children — critical race theory. Equity, the central feature of CRT, divides us into affinity groups according to our race, gender, sexual orientation and class. CRT is the antithesis of “all men are created equal.” It legitimatizes hatred and resentment.
America, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. We can keep it nobly or lose it meanly.
Walter J. Eno
Scarborough
