Letter to the editor: If we don't turn country around, young people won't be celebrating Memorial Day

Memorial Day is a time to remember and pay tribute to our fallen. This year I had the opportunity to sponsor an inscribed brick along one of the walkways at The National Museum of The Marine Corps near Quantico, Virginia. It was in honor of Marine Capt. Tom Ross. Tom was a good friend who was killed in April 1969 at our mountaintop site near DaNang, a few months after I left at the end of 1968. Tom left behind a wife and young son.

Tom’s name is on the Wall in D.C., along with the other 58,000-plus Vietnam casualties.

Remembering and honoring these patriots is important, but how many of us really care? Real history is rarely taught in public schools. The revisionists most recently have mocked and attempted to discredit people who made real contributions to the development of our unique constitution and government.

A small minority want to tear down statues and monuments in the name of ignorance. We are so weak as a nation and society that we let it happen. Ignorant people who don’t know our history and downgrade our society have no right to decide what we do. Yet, we elect officials who put our national security in jeopardy, all in the name of power, individual influence, money and now DEI!
We have developed a society of underachievers, who want to be victims and live off the backs of hardworking people, who believe in what we have, and cherish it.

What are young people to think? No wonder the military has trouble filling their quotas. They see weak leadership, and an administration set on division, and no real foreign policy.

If we don’t turn this ship around, my grandchildren won’t be celebrating Memorial Day. It will be a thing of the past. So will the U.S. and its proper place as a leader in the free world.

R.E. (BOB) RICHARDSON
Sumter