Remembering December milestones
December begins a season of lights and good will. It remains a high point of the year celebrating the profound wonder of the Christmas story. But the fireside warmth of this winter harbinger has not always been afforded those courageous souls who braved the most inclement weather to secure our freedom and liberty. Their sacrifice is important to remember so we don’t forget . . .
On Christmas night on the banks of the Delaware River stood what can only be described as a hungry, barely clad, rag tag army of American Patriots led by a general who was losing more battles than he won. It was a moment of do or die. And that dire reality was the truth behind the general’s password: “Victory or Death!” Added to the soldiers’ privation was a blustery nor’easter. It was cold and damp—not the best of times, but they made it the most memorable of times. The plan was to cross the frigid Delaware River and make a surprise attack on the Hessians lodged at Trenton. It came close to failing, but miraculously it did not.
The general prepared his soldiers with words from Thomas Paine. The pamphleteer's newly printed “American Crises” was read to the troops.“These are the times that try men’s souls,” Paine wrote. “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of men and women.” Paine wrote on: " Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated."
Fast forward to December 1944 in the Ardennes Forest. The enemy of freedom is the same, but this time the Germans won the surprise attack, but thereafter would be in retreat. The Battle of the Bulge is considered the largest battle fought by US forces in World War II. Inside the chapel at the American Military Cemetery in Luxembourg where over 5,000 American war dead are buried is this inscription: “Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression."
May these stories of Christmas past forever inspire our purpose as a redeemer nation.
Cameron S. Brown is president of the Kalamazoo Abraham Lincoln Institute and a former Michigan State Senator. Follow him at www.HistoryFrontiers.blog.
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This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Opinion
