Here is a reminder that there is more than one kind of Republican, more than one kind of "patriot." Chickenhawks may rule at the moment and our Democracy totters, but we can take heart on Independence Day that we have in our past great Americans who, with all their failings, can still inspire us with their humanity and decency. Ike's letter to Mamie is below the fold.
How I wish this cruel business of war could be completed quickly. Entirely aside from longing to return to you (and stay there) it is a terribly sad business to total up the casualties each day--even in an air war--and to realize how many youngsters are gone forever. A man must develop a veneer of callousness that lets him consider such things dispassionately; but he can never escape a recognition of the fact that back home the news brings anguish and suffering to families all over the country. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, wives and friends must have a difficult time preserving any comforting philosophy and retaining any belief in the eternal rightness of things. War demands real toughness of fiber, not only in the soldiers who must endure, but in the homes that must sacrifice their best.
I think it is instructive to note that Truman got us into a war, and Kennedy got us into a war, and Eisenhower did not. I do not forget the CIA's criminal meddling in the Congo and Guatemala and Iran during his administration, but we had no hot war anyway. Democrats must learn that they can stand against war and still be strong, and still be perceived as strong. That's Ike's lesson to us.
Eisenhower to his wife Mamie, April 16, 1944
From Letters of a Nation, Broadway Books, 1997, Andrew Carroll, ed.