The Greatest Generation: Eighty years ago today, a young David Hackworth sat glued to his radio, listening to news of the D-Day invasion, and made a bold decision to join the fight for freedom.

John Konrad writes: Hackworth was brave but there was a major hitch: Dave was only 14 on D-Day. His father and mother died before his first birthday. He paid a “transient wino” to pose as his father so he could claim to be old enough to join the United States Merchant Marine with parental consent.
It was a time of desperate need and the service with the highest casualty rate during the war—the U.S. Merchant Marine—didn’t ask too many questions. They welcomed him.
He soon found himself shipping out to serve his country on a T2 tanker supplying fuel to air bases and naval stations in the South Pacific. After the war, Dave’s determination didn’t wane. He lied about his age once more to enlist in the United States Army. It was easier this time because he used his Merchant Marine documents to enlist.
His courage and valor shone brightly during the Korean War, where he earned three Silver Stars and a commission. In the Vietnam War, he distinguished himself further, receiving two Distinguished Service Crosses, seven additional Silver Stars and was promoted to Colonel. His total of TEN Silver Stars remains unmatched in the history of any branch of service. Hackworth’s story is a testament to the indomitable American spirit, reminding us of the incredible sacrifices made by those who came before us to protect our freedoms.

Conservatives vs. Populists: Mike Pence calls them “Putin Republicans” and if conservatives don’t answer populists, many people on the right will believe outrageous Russian propaganda.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has been responding to lunacy and lies coming from self described “national populists.” He is reluctant to criticize fellow Republicans but sometimes it’s necessary.
For example, many conservatives were extremely disappointed with populist Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s (R-AL) comments on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” on Wednesday. Tuberville, the former Auburn football coach, repeated the same nonsense he told Laura Ingraham about the “Ukraine war racket.”
He’s not only wrong but the Senator is copying ridiculous Code Pink arguments and blatantly false Kremlin claims that are frequently seen on the Tucker Carlson Network, InfoWars and the Gateway Pundit.
Why is this happening? One factor is that Russian chief propagandist Margarita Simonyan openly admits the Kremlin is operating thousands of entities online that spread outrageous disinformation targeting the US population.

On Wednesday, Sen. Tommy Tuberville of the Armed Services Committee once again stunned the national security community. He told Steve Bannon that Russia from the very beginning has only wanted peace but it’s the U.S. that wants war! He claimed there have been no significant battles in Ukraine “in 7 or 8 months,” which is a shock to anyone who has been monitoring the war.
Speaking of the Putin dictatorship, Tuberville said “He didn’t want Ukraine. He didn’t want Europe. Hell, he’s got enough land of his own. He just wants to make sure he does not have U.S. weapons in Ukraine.” If that was his goal, he achieved the exact opposite by launching the war.
There would be no US or NATO weapons in Ukraine if 190,000 Russian troops had not crossed the border in February 2022. More than 500,000 Russian troops have died attacking Ukraine and they were not peace activists.
The Senator doesn’t realize Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014 and invaded eastern Ukraine at the same time. Putin never mentioned anything about U.S. weapons.
The Senator also didn’t mention the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia, the deliberate targeting of the civilian population, blowing up dams, and committing numerous war crimes.
Furthermore, Sen. Tuberville is repeating the nonsense claims of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who says “Putin everyday says I want to settle the war. And Zelensky has said we’re not going to negotiate.” The Putin peace plan is 30% of Ukraine now, time to regroup and rearm, and then coming back for the remaining 70%.
There are now tens of thousands of tortured and murdered civilians, and beautiful major cities have been reduced to rubble. Obviously, Tuberville’s definition of “peace” is far different from ours.
Apparently, the Senator is condemning Donald Trump who provided Ukraine with the Javelin anti-tank missiles that had a key role in halting the initial invasion. The Obama/Biden administration denied all arms sales to Ukraine for 8 years. That’s why Putin didn’t raise it as an issue.
In addition, as Speaker Mike Johnson emphasized, Trump disagreed with Tuberville on the Ukraine military aid package and the House GOP adopted all of Trump’s recommendations. They are now law. Despite over two years of a hot war with massive casualties, Tuberville believes Ukraine should not fear Russia. The only peace Russia is interested in a huge piece of Ukraine.
Putin says, “Russia’s borders do not stop anywhere,” and they never needed a pretext for aggression against their neighbors or other nations. Unprovoked Russian aggression is well known in:
1939 Poland
1939 Finland
1940 Latvia
1940 Lithuania and 1991
1940 Estonia
1940 Chad
1956 Hungary
1968 Czechoslovakia
1979 Afghanistan
1940, Moldova, also 1990
1992 Georgia, also 2008
2014, Ukraine, also 2022
Tuberville says, “We should be negotiating peace, not funding and fueling war.” The U.S. and NATO assistance isn’t about fueling war but supporting a nation resisting blatant Russian aggression. Putin frequently praises Josef Stalin and thinks the collapse of the USSR and Russian communism was a great tragedy. He has been clear about the desires of the Axis of Evil. He wants a a world without NATO and the end of the post WW II system of collective security.
He wants the U.S. confined to the Western Hemisphere so Russia can rebuild the borders of former Soviet Union and be able to do what it likes without condemnation or oversight. He wants China to control Asia and Iran to dominate the Middle East. The Berlin Wall fell for a good reason, and it would be foolish to rebuild it – and all it represented.
This war is about Russia’s imperialistic expansion, Ukraine’s cultural erasure, Black Sea control, the richest soil in Europe, abundant natural resources, the ability to directly attack NATO countries, and showing Russia’s long oppressed citizens that they can’t win freedom, human rights, and democracy with their own version of Ukraine’s Euro-Maidan Revolution.
It unfortunately took them 16 months, but a strong bipartisan majority in the U.S. Congress finally supported the military aid package because they know if Vladimir Putin overran Ukraine, it wouldn’t be long before the Russian military crossed another border, where our men and women in uniform would be called upon to go and fight and defend as part of NATO.
Why did it take 16 months? Because President Biden never made a national address to rally support and explain why it was necessary. He never made it clear why Ukraine military aid is in our national interest.
Giving Ukrainians what they need to repel the Russian invasion was also the best way to send a message to the other rogue nations that America is still the leader of the free world, and we’re not going to tolerate their attempting to redraw international border lines by force.
If Russia’s unprovoked aggression can be stopped it could change the world. It could well mean freedom for Belarus and Georgia, and after 34 years, Moldova might finally be free of Russian occupiers.
Stopping Russian aggression will hopefully make Kazakhstan and Taiwan more secure, and it will help in the effort to overthrow dictators in Iran and Syria. Without Russia, Africa might finally be coup-free, and perhaps Afghanistan will rise again.
It took them a long time, but our NATO allies have finally stepped up and have contributed more than America, even accounting for the most recent aid package. In addition, Tuberville’s claims about the “war racket” are wrong, especially when he refers to “pallets of cash.”
That was the fatally flawed Obama/Biden Iran nuclear deal. With Ukraine, the aid is in the form of military equipment, assigned a value, and then donated. That equipment is usually older and would have been replaced in the next few years anyway. Most of the U.S. arsenal was procured for exactly this reason: to fight the Russians.
President Biden could have immediately donated tanks from our stockpile, but his preference was to build new ones.
68% of the funds in the Ukraine aid bill remain in the United States and they are being used to rebuild the brittle American defense industrial base by producing new equipment. That is a major reason the Ukraine aid bill passed the Senate with 70 votes.
Sen. Tuberville also claims we should ignore Ukraine because of problems related to American border security.
We can both support Ukraine and secure our border. We are America. We are a superpower, and we can achieve both goals. The problem with U.S. border security has never been about money. It is that practically all Democratic Party politicians are vehemently opposed to a border wall.
Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine has had an enormous impact on the outlook of many nations. We can already see the end result is finally achieving adequate defense spending by our NATO allies.
18 NATO nations are now meeting their spending pledges which is up from 3 in 2014. Poland will be spending 5% of GDP on defense while other EU nations will be moving to 3%, which is now the American level. If current U.S. spending projections continue, the United States will fall to 2.4%.
Many foreign leaders repeatedly rejected demands to significantly increase defense spending, but now the Russian invasion has had a unifying effect. They realize the “peace dividend” of the 1990s is long over and there is no going back to the reformist Boris Yeltsin era in Russia.
Now we are seeing the biggest transformation since the end of the Cold War in 1989. Europe has finally been startled awake, and it understands the importance of burden sharing with the United States.
Tuberville’s peace at any price mentality has given way to an awareness that increased military power is needed in the United States and Europe. A continent on autopilot, lulled into amnesia, has been galvanized into an immense effort to save freedom.
Now, the Baltic Sea has become Lake NATO, and there is a big strategic shift in Europe. Germany, racked by guilt of WW II, previously bought cheap Russian gas and waved away the threat of Putin.
Germany has had to eliminate its dependence on Russia for 55 percent of its gas. It has been forced to contemplate a partial decoupling from China, an enormous market for German cars, to reduce its strategic vulnerability.
Credible deterrence won the Cold War, but credible deterrence eroded sharply in its aftermath as defense budgets were cut. Reagan had the right answer in promoting peace through strength policies and we hope Sen. Tuberville will realize Russian appeasement will not bring peace.
Populists such as Steve Bannon, Sen. Tuberville, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and the House Freedom Caucus are all wrong. America’s donated military equipment has not been wasted and aggression by Russia, China, Iran and others in the Axis of Evil should not ignored.