Sunday, April 24, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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If this were a test, we would be struggling to get a passing grade.
Unfortunately, the war in Ukraine is not a test. It is real. People are dying — old men, women and very young children. Not to mention the husbands and fathers who have vowed to defend their country against Vladimir Putin’s criminal war machine to their death — something the Russian president is only too happy to oblige.
Ukraine in the past two months has already passed any test of courage and determination the world can put in its way. Even though its cities are being reduced to rubble and its citizens reduced to dead bodies strewn across the landscape and dumped in shallow graves, the fighting spirit and sense of patriotism of those who remain has not been diminished.
Ukraine yearns to be free, and its people have put their money, their lives and their futures where their dreams live.
But what of the rest of us? What of the United States, our European allies — who have hosted similar destruction in the not-too-distant past — and the NATO countries that have sworn to defend each other should Putin turn his guns on them? Are we passing the test?
Yes, we are sending aid — weapons of war, humanitarian and medical — and we are right to do so. But are we doing enough?
Instead of hearing the drumbeat of American willpower being brought to bear against this murdering Russian dictator, what the nightly and all-day news programs keep shouting are complaints. About the higher price of gas, the higher cost of food and the higher cost of other goods and services that both this war and the aftermath of a multiyear COVID-19 pandemic hath wrought.
I understand that the pain at the pump is real. I understand that the rising cost of goods and services is making life difficult for so many. And I understand that to many people, it is hard to look past these challenges toward the bigger picture of America’s place on the planet and her role in the world.
But I also know that in World War II — that’s when the “Greatest Generation” of Americans stepped up to rid the world of Adolf Hitler — there was much worse pain.
As for high gas prices? There was no gas to be had.
As for food? Forget higher prices, there was barely enough food to feed our nation or anyone else. That was the cost of war. If there was any complaining, it was drowned out by the determination of America to fight for liberty and the God-given right to be free.
Unlike today, when everyone — even those without reason — has a complaint about how much products cost and how scarce are the goods we can get, people in that great generation of Americans who stepped up and took care of business were made of stronger stuff — the stuff that stands up to bullies, fights back against injustice and in the face of great difficulty is not found wanting.
We got a brief glimpse of American determination in the far-less-than-life-threatening example in Florida recently. Disney’s mouse roared back against political bullying of people with little or no power, even though standing up to such tyranny will come at a significant cost.
Florida is using the full weight of government to punish Walt Disney World — which includes the millions of children who visit the theme parks each year who prefer the actual Mickey Mouse to that Mickey Mouse outfit currently in charge of the governor’s office — just because the company dared to speak out against injustice.
Disney’s is the spirit that America and its friends and allies need in Russia’s war against Ukraine. What’s right is right, and what is wrong needs to be called out — even if the cost is great.
That is the test that stands before us.
America has an ironclad commitment to defend NATO countries when Putin decides to do to them what he is doing to Ukraine. If we use the threat of nuclear war to justify our failure to step up, step in and do the right thing — the American thing — in Ukraine, will we also use that same excuse to justify a failure to act when our solemn promise is on the line?
Surely, our NATO allies — who have the most to lose should Putin turn toward them — are watching to see how we perform, how we lead, on this test. As we are watching them perform on the test of their own-self-interest. What are they willing to give up in order to stop what is certainly a maniac bent on the kind of domination that makes whole countries disappear?
My concern is for America. We are at a time in our own political life that challenges our American will to succeed. When we needed it before, the Greatest Generation rose to the challenge.
As a baby boomer who has spawned succeeding generations and watched as we all question our role in leadership of this challenging world, my fear is that unlike Ukraine and a few examples of courage here and there, this country no longer speaks with the determined mind of a great generation.
It can’t be about the price of gas or the cost of bread — not when the fate of the free world may hang in the balance.
The boom in my generation and in those that have followed must be the sound of our collective voice that says “no more” to those who would destroy innocent neighbors and friends.
If we fail this test of leadership, I am afraid that boom will be the sound of America’s promise — imploding.
That’s a sound for which Putin dreams.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
