The American Spectator

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Unshared Sacrifice

By Ben Stein on 11.18.05 @ 12:05AM

(Page 2 of 3)

Shared sacrifice is a major way to bind the nation. Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe poor Dr. Dean would make hay with that.

SATURDAY
NOW, I'M IN KANSAS CITY. This city has major significance for me because it is here that we adopted our handsome but teenage son, Tommy. He is so handsome but so much a teenager. Anyway, I am not here for a celebration of that adoption. I am here to speak to the First Marine Division Association. It is a sort of alumni association of the First Marine Division. Just in case you don't know, they are the heroes who fought at Belleau Wood, Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Okinawa, New Guinea, Cho-Sin Reservoir, I-Corps, Fallujah, and, well, you get the picture.

These guys are so handsome in their uniforms and their medals you can scarcely believe it. And they stand so straight and tall and still carry themselves with total pride. At a reception before the dinner, I met a man who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in Vietnam. He is now a deputy secretary of defense and his name is Barney Barnum. A quiet, unassuming man. I spoke to a man who was a hero at Guadalcanal. His wife told me how he had won himself a ticket out of the war with a wound, a "million dollar wound," but then insisted on going back for the battle of Okinawa. His name was Mr. Cannell, I think. Anyway, he's my hero, and he just rides the bus like everybody else. I met two men who had fought at Cho-Sin. They were still thin enough to wear their dress uniforms from 53 years ago. They laughed about getting shot at in 35-degree-below weather. But they brought home all of their wounded and their dead. And they taught the Red Army of China that Americans could and would fight and die for freedom.

(By the way, Marina enlightened me about how totally ungrateful the South Koreans are for our sacrifice. What is wrong with them?)

We had a long speech by General Natonski, currently commanding general of the First Marine Division. He told about incredible heroism in Iraq. He was a real warrior type and I liked him a lot.

Then I gave a short speech about how our whole life is dependent on the blood and sacrifice of the Marines and the Army and Navy and Air Force and Coast Guard and how we would not breathe one breath without them.

Really, how do we nasty civilians deserve any heroes like the ones in that room? The Marine band played "Waltzing Matilda" and "God Bless America" and I felt as if I were in a room of kings.

FRIDAY
I AM UP IN THE WORLD'S most beautiful county, Bonner County, Idaho, eating spare ribs at Hill's Resort, looking at Priest Lake, basking in the good aura, and a couple came up to me a few minutes ago. They were a good-looking middle-aged couple named Captain and Mrs. McMahon, USN. Captain McMahon flew 150 missions piloting an A-6 over Vietnam. Exactly 40 years ago today, while I was studying to be a pukey, whining trial lawyer, his A-6 caught fire and he had to eject over the South China Sea. A Soviet trawler was about to pick him up when a U.S. Navy helicopter swooped in and saved him.

He is still amazingly handsome, even jaunty, and his wife is beautiful. And they glow with their inner courage and bravery and patriotism. And -- now this is the best part -- they are thanking me for the few words I write about the military. I walked down by the shore of Luby Bay and looked at the lake and the mountains and the sky and the eagles at dusk and thought, when God sends messengers of good, he sometimes sends warriors with beautiful wives to do His bidding. Without Captain McMahon and the others like him, this would all be ashes. God bless him and her, and this magnificent place, this Idaho, this America.

SATURDAY
I AM BACK HOME AFTER A GLORIOUS morning at the marina in Sandpoint. Perfect sun, balmy breeze, friendly men and women greeting me by name out by the sailboats. I felt as if I were in heaven, and I was.

But now I am back and wifey is still out of town with Tommy in Massachusetts. How I miss them both.

Let me now tell you about wifey, about the greatest creation of mankind.

On July 4, 1966, I went to a black tie ball at the State Department, where I was a 21-year-old summer intern. I met a stunningly beautiful auburn-haired 19-year-old woman with a perfect nose in a blue silk dress. She was from Idabel, Oklahoma. She looked like a dream come true and went to Vassar College, not far from where I was going to law school in New Haven, Connecticut.

Flash forward. It's 2005. This woman Alexandra Denman -- she goes by her maiden name because she was for a time a famous lawyer -- has been my wife off and on for 37 years. In that time, we have been divorced, remarried, separated, reunited, and are now apart for the summer and fall as she works on an errand of mercy in New England and I swim and act in Beverly Hills.

This woman, this wifey, is a saint. She has the patience of Job. She never gets angry except at Democrats -- just kidding, she really almost never gets angry at all. She forgives the most outrageous behavior, especially by her husband, and has the most spectacularly acute sense of humor on the planet.

Letter to the Editor

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