I opened my email to discover that I had gotten another one!  You know, those emails that well-meaning friends send around to raise our ire.  The one that came today arrived from someone whom I admire.  This person does good work in our community, is talented, and well-spoken.  So, when my mailbox said, “You’ve got mail,” I hoped to find good news from my friend.

I should have noticed that the subject field said,” FW: Mad and Sending to Everyone.”  Uh, oh.  I should have heard that tin-can robot from “Lost In Space” yelling, “Danger, Will Robinson!” as he flailed his arms about, alarms blaring, lights flashing, spinning in circles.  But I got lured in.  I read it.

It was “The Story of the WWII Memorial Revisionist History Scandal” a story that has been drifting through cyberspace since 2004 when the memorial opened.  Apparently four words were left off of FDR’s inscribed quote, and according to the email….INTENTIONALLY!  Oh, what words?  Four little, tiny, hot-button issue words: So Help Us, God.

This week’s blogpost is my reply.  You don’t have to agree with me…never!  (Unless you do agree with me, of course.)   So, here you go:  The email that I sent back, complete with links…

To my dear Friend,

I hope you’ll understand and even appreciate my reply. Please indulge me:

 I was a history major in college and worked as a librarian for many years.  So it’s in my bones to check sources, to verify the facts.  

 I found many sites that analyze this story (which has been circulating on the web since 2004).  In about 10 sites, the story is proven to be false, or AT LEAST out of context.  There were a couple of sites that gave support to this author’s premise, but most established that the premise is mis-guided.

 According to the research that I did after receiving your email, the inscribed quote is actually just a very few words lifted from a much longer speech.  The words “so help us, God” are contained in the speech, but they were not Roosevelt’s final words, as the circulating story states–“the end of the quote.”  In fact, there is another paragraph of the speech that follows these 4 words.

 I’m sending you links to some of the sites I explored. The first one is an audio clip of Roosevelt giving the speech.  You’ll hear several outbursts of applause, including a round of applause for the sentence under scrutiny.  The second link contains the entire text of the speech. The third link is the WWII Memorial’s official website. 

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrpearlharbor.htm 

http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/w/wwiimemorial.htm

http://www.wwiimemorial.com/default.asp?page=home.asp

http://hnn.us/articles/7899.html

http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/memorial.asp

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_war_memorial.htm

 Were those 4 words important to the speech?  Yes.  Were they left out intentionally as a deliberate act of revisionism?  I doubt that. To begin with, anyone taking the time to find the facts and the actual speech could do so in just a few minutes, as I have done today.   Revisionist history by definition is where there is a conscious attempt to completely re-write the facts.  These facts are just too easy to find, too readily out there in the world for anyone to deliberately try to revise their meaning.  And if the omission was deliberate, or even perceived as such, then do what it says to do in our Constitution:  Petition.  According to the WWII Memorial’s official website there are reserve funds to maintain the memorial.  If enough people petitioned, perhaps some of that  money could be used to add the 4 words.  If there are enough people who are called to Citizen Action in a true grassroots effort, I’m sure it could be done.

 My only reason for taking the time to dig around and to send you what I hope you’ll believe is a well-intended, thoughtful response is this:

Right now our great nation is torn on so many fronts.  Too many people from all sides are trying to poke holes in the strength, “the righteous mighty power of the United States” (phrase borrowed from the FDR speech that is in question).  

 When I was teaching, every day I walked the kids through an explanation of the words of the Pledge of Allegiance, to give them context that would be meaningful to a little kid.  I always loved getting to that word INDIVISIBLE!  I would explain that our 50 great states had chosen to join together into one great nation–a UNION!  We are  UNITED states.  And INDIVISIBLE means that no one can tear us apart.  We will work together to get through our differences, our difficulties.  Then when we REALLY need to rally, we will all UNITE.  

Now I see so many people intentionally tearing at that fabric, trying to pull us all apart.  The most clear evidence of this is the recent announcement from the Gov. Rick Perry of Texas that he might support a secession.  I was born in Texas, a 7th generation Texan. I do not want that to happen!

 Our parents demonstrated the full meaning of being UNITED on that Great Day of Infamy.  Our fathers signed up to go to war.  Our grandparents and mothers dug in to help out.  Victory Gardens, Rosie the Riveter, The Women’s Air Service Patrol, Recycling–like we still haven’t seen since.  SACRIFICE to hold a nation together in its glory, in its darkest hour.  Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Atheists, Nativists, Muslims, Mormons, Quakers, 7th Days, and everybody else–They all united to serve our country after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  No one was untouched.  Just like what happened to our generation on September 11, 2001.  No one was untouched, and we won’t ever forget that horrible day.

 Yet even in the shadow of 9/11, the problems that we face today are nothing compared to the great struggles of our parents’ generation.  An agrarian society geared up and transformed itself into a manufacturing super machine in just two years!  Our entire nation was forever transformed as people left farms, and urban centers flourished.  How in the world did one country manage to create such huge systemic change in such a short time?  They were united around a common cause–to win a war, to stop Fascism.  Today people throw that word around, Fascism, and they don’t even really know the actual definition of what a Fascist government is.  Today too many people do not take the time to study, to check facts, to learn! 

 Everyday I think of my own father.  He gave valiant service in the U.S. military for 22 years and then continued as a military contractor for many years after as a consultant, a flight instructor and a contract pilot.  He fought in WWII, in the Korean War, in the French-IndoChinese War, in the Burmese War and in the Vietnam War.  And this I know for certain:  My dad loved facts.  He loved history. He loved learning and knowledge, pushing my brother and me to excel in school.  He taught his kids to love their country with all its warts and bumps and all its glory.  He also taught us to ask questions, to shed the light of learning where there was ignorance and to never accept somebody’s story as gospel until you’d done your homework.

 So help me.  Let’s check these kinds of emails out for their basis in fact before we send them along.  If we do not, we only serve to further DIVIDE our great nation.  And right now none of us needs to be pitted against the other.  

 Friend to friend.  Neighbor to neighbor.  Let’s all pick up our shovels and help give glory to our nation.

 And if you want to send THIS email along, I invite you to do so…

 With great respect,

 bz

 And to my dear blog readers, if YOU want to send this link along….Please do so.

I’m B.Z. Smith.  I tell stories. This is one of them.