David A. Keene

The Death of Heroes
Jan. 8 2003

A few years ago in the wake of the release of "Saving Private Ryan" and the publication of Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation," it became almost commonplace to note the passing of the generation of Americans who braved the great depression, defeated the Nazis in Europe, the Japanese in Asia and handed us all a richer, stronger and perhaps better nation than they'd inherited.

The truth of that commonplace struck me as the New Year began with the passing of two men I have known and admired. Joe Foss and Jay Hubbard both died early on New Years Day and neither will be forgotten by anyone who knew them. Joe was 87 and Jay was 80.

They were both Marines. Joe was America's greatest ace, having downed some twenty-six Japanese planes during the defense of Guadalcanal in 1942. He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President Roosevelt after having already won the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart. He went on to become a television personality, was elected Governor of South Dakota, Commissioner of the American Football League and President of the National Rifle Association.

Tom Brokaw devoted an entire chapter to Joe's life in his book.

Jay spent World War II on the ground. He saw fierce fighting at Bougainville, Emirau, Guam and Okinawa as US forces fought their way back across the Pacific following Pearl Harbor. After World War II, he too became an aviator and managed to see two more wars as a pilot. He led the air strikes in 1951 that made it possible for US troops fighting in Korea finally take what became known to history as "Heartbreak Ridge." He retired as a Brigadier General. The Marine Corps' Aviation museum in Miramar is named for him and he won every medal that Foss wore with the exception of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Last year Jay told my son (his grandson) that while he enjoyed "Saving Private Ryan," he found it impossible to sit through a more recent movie. Mel Gibson's "We Were Soldiers" detailed the horrors that took place during the battle for Vietnam's Ia drang Valley. Although Jay was in Vietnam when the battle took place, that isn't what got to him. "We faced exactly the same thing for four days at Bougainville," he told the boy, "and I just didn't need to live through that again." He knew that Hell is just that regardless of what you call it.

It is important that we forget neither these men nor what they did for us. A year or so ago, Joe was flying to New York. He had his Medal of Honor in his briefcase because he always feared losing it if he put it in his checked baggage. The security guards who supposedly protect us from our newest enemies tried to confiscate the medal as a potential weapon; the incident that received national attention. "They had no idea what it was, but they weren't about to take it away from me after what I had to do to earn it." Joe told me. And they didn't.

These men were heroes and representative of the best of a generation that we are losing. They were citizen warriors who lived and fought in a dangerous world so that their children and grandchildren might live peacefully in one that would be a little safer for their efforts.

But they both knew that their will be new battles to fight and that others would have to do what they had done if we are to survive as a free people. Jay said once that his grandfather, who was born in 1833, served as an officer in the Union Army. "He held me in his arms when I was an infant … as … he had been held by his grandfather who was a young soldier in our Revolutionary War. That somehow stirs me." His sons, like Jay himself, were Marines and it was fitting that a few months ago when his granddaughter enlisted in the army she flew to California to let him know.

Joe and Jay both clung to life as valiantly as they fought for our freedoms and both of them made it into the New Year. Jay had told his family that making it to 2003, which marked both his 60th wedding anniversary and the centennial of manned flight, was his final goal. Jay's son might have been speaking for both him and Joe Foss when he said, "He may have crash landed into 2003 with his landing gear up and engine afire, but, by God, he made it."

But, then, heroes always do.

(David A. Keene is Chairman of the American Conservative Union and a Managing Associate with the Carmen Group, a DC governmental affairs firm)