Memorial Day Speech - Why They Fought: The Story of the Fighting 36th

On Memorial Day (May 25, 2009), I was asked to present a speech at a gathering in Market Square, Portsmouth, NH. Below is the transcript.

Why They Fought: The Story of the Fighting 36th
By Jeff Chidester

Today we are brought together to honor those who have given the last full measure of devotion in service to this great and noble country. We gather here today not only to honor their legacies, but to thank them for their sacrifice.

Millions of men and women have died fighting for a belief that all here today share….that America “is that shining city on the hill,” a beacon in the darkness of tyranny and oppression, shining for all those seeking freedom and liberty.

But how can you truly say thanks to those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for a cause they deemed more important than their own life? We thank them by remembering their stories, recalling the reasons why they fought, and above all, by not letting history repeat itself.
Today I would like to share the story of the 36th Infantry Division with you, the Fighting 36th. The Fighting 36th was one of the first units called into service as the fascist armies of Italy and the socialist armies of Nazi Germany swept across Europe and Africa.

The boys of the Fighting 36th would challenge the armies that fought in service of their tyrannical leaders, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, for four long years.
The Fighting 36th would take the fight for liberty to the sands of North Africa, the beaches of Sicily, the countryside of France, and would later be part of a force that liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp.

The Fighting 36th was a National Guard Unit in Texas prior to the start of World War II, but whose history dates back to the Alamo in 1835 and the Rough Riders of 1899. As the war in Europe progressed, their ranks would be filled with patriots from every corner of our country.
One such patriot was a young man by the name of Edward Dahlgren, from right up the road in Portland, Me. Sergeant Edward Dahlgren would later go on to win the Silver Star, three Bronze Stars, a Purple Heart and the Medal of Honor for heroic actions while serving in the Fighting 36th Infantry.

Edward Dahlgren would leave the Army as a Lieutenant, and would work the next 40 years as seed potato inspector for the State of Maine. Lieutenant Dahlgren represents the thousand of men who served as brothers in the Fighting 36th, many who did not return.
But why did they do it? Why did each of these men of the 36th Infantry Division leave their families and the safety of their homes to fight in far off places with names such as Arzew, Rabat, Paestum, and Mannheim.

The questions seem complicated, but the answer is simple, and can be found in the power and solace of the words of Patrick Henry:

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

The people of Europe were in chains, and had been enslaved by the worst kind of evil. This fate would befall America unless good people did something. Good people like those of the Fighting 36th.

On September 9th, 1943, the Fighting 36th would carry Patrick Henry’s words with them into battle as they spearhead the invasion of Italy, in what would become known as one of the bloodiest campaigns of the war.

I have no doubt that as the GI’s of the 36th climbed down into the landing craft that they thought much about how, as the first act of seizing power, both the German and Italian governments nationalized the banks “for the good of the masses.”

Nor do I believe that the men of the 36th thought much about the fact that most major industries were either seized or placed into a “public trust” by the National Socialist Party of Germany and the National Fascist Party of Italy.

What did it matter to the members of the 36th Infantry whether automaker Alpha Romeo built cars based on the wishes of Il Duce Mussolini, or that Chancellor Hitler forced Mercedes Benz to build cars based on Herr Fuhrer’s designs.

As the landing crafts carried the warriors of the 36th Infantry closer to the beaches of Paestum, a loudspeaker could be heard from the landing area proclaiming in English: "Come on in and give up. We have you covered." Yet they stormed the beaches anyway, undeterred by the propaganda.

It is unlikely as these brave souls of the 36th dodged the hail of machine gun fire, that they were thinking about how the oppressive governments under Mussolini and Hitler used similar misinformation to turn their fellow citizens against each other.

The Fighting 36th had more important things to do than worry about how class-envy, perverting religion, and invoking race all were used to divide the people of German and Italy, all under the guise of a change for the better, and a hope for a new and improved country if they would just let the State take care of everything.

And the members of the 36th Infantry could not envision the horrors that awaited them in Dachau, as they fought their way one inch at a time from Italy, through France, into Germany.
Many in the 36th could not image the horror one human could do to another in the name of science, and that one of the willing participants in this evil was a judiciary that answered to the “living rules” of the State, not to the common sense of the law.

But the members of the 36th Infantry would see the devastating affects that an all powerful centralized government could have on the people first hand.
What the members of the 36th did know is that they were fighting for liberty. They were fighting for everything America stood for, and fighting against everything socialist Germany and fascist Italy represented.

The soldiers of the 36th Infantry couldn’t lose because the greater cause is not what you fight against, but what you fight for.
It is not what we fight against that is noble; it is what we fight for that determines defeat or victory. Tyranny never sleeps; it reinvents itself and hopes that people will forget history. There will always be someone yelling from the beach “Come in and give up. We have you covered.”

The questions is - are you going to honor those brave members of the 36th Infantry and fight for liberty, or are you going to be like those who went with the flow in Germany and Italy and suffered totalitarianism? Will you fight for a cause greater than yourself? The choice is yours……..