On Memorial Day, I thought of my dad, who served in World War II. Eighty years ago, he fought in Persia, which is now Iran. I never knew what he did there because he didn’t talk about it. He was sworn to secrecy during the war because it was a classified mission, and he carried that secrecy with him to his grave.
I later learned he was part of the Persian Brigade, which was guarding a supply line from the Middle East to Russia, who needed weapons and oil to fight the Nazis.
Sgt. Pasick was a medic in the Army. His service was one of the proudest moments of his life. He was overseas for two years, and after that, he never left the country except to go to Windsor, Ontario. Like all the soldiers who fought in World War II, he was a brave man, a proud man, and a true patriot. He went to war, as many of his peers did, because he believed in the United States, in democracy, and in the Constitution.
He was a lifelong Democrat who believed in the mission designed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I can’t imagine what would’ve happened in the world if the Nazis had won the war.
The Russian stand in Leningrad was a major turning point of the war.
I am sure that if my dad were alive today, he would be aghast at how the current administration is moving so aggressively to attack the very principles that led him and so many others, many of whom sacrificed their lives to serve.
He risked his life to uphold the principles that Abraham Lincoln so eloquently identified in the Gettysburg Address (which my classmates and I at Ferndale High were required to memorize).
That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.