"Going to Omaha Beach in a Higgins Boat"

June 29, 2011
Fearing the demise of our Republic is nothing new in America. Americans are prone to an almost inexplicable belief in our inevitable decline. Right after winning our War of Independence, many of The Founding Fathers worried about America going the way of ...

Fearing the demise of our Republic is nothing new in America. Americans are prone to an almost inexplicable belief in our inevitable decline. Right after winning our War of Independence, many of The Founding Fathers worried about America going the way of the Roman Empire.

The incomparable English writer Charles Dickens observed in the middle of the 19th Century, "If its individual citizens, to a man, are to be believed, America always is depressed, and always is stagnated, and always is in an alarming crisis, and never was otherwise."

As I get ready to celebrate the Fourth of July weekend, my thoughts keep going back to a recent visit to the beaches and cemeteries at Normandy. Standing on the cliffs overlooking the English Channel is one of the most humbling things you'll ever experience. It puts your mundane challenges and worries into true perspective.

To think about those young American men in Higgins boats, approaching some of the most heavily fortified terrain in history will bring you to your knees. To know they were there to save human civilization from destroying itself is beyond comprehension.

And while these men and the country that produced them seem eons away, I believe things haven't changed in the Republic.

From Bunker Hill to New Orleans; to Antietam and Gettysburg; to the Somme and Guadalcanal; to Chosin and Ia Drang; to Fallujah and the Korengal Valley; and a thousand other places, the men and women who have served to keep our independence are a mirror to us all.

They didn't come from outer space. They were raised in American homes, went to American schools, and grew up in the American culture.

For all its foibles and flaws, how we can get down on a country that produces such individuals?

Happy Birthday America!

About the Author

Andrew R. Thomas Blog | Associate Professor of Marketing and International Business

Andrew R. Thomas, Ph.D., is associate professor of marketing and international business at the University of Akron; and, a member of the core faculty at the International School of Management in Paris, France.

He is a bestselling business author/editor, whose 23 books include, most recently, American Shale Energy and the Global Economy: Business and Geopolitical Implications of the Fracking Revolution, The Customer Trap: How to Avoid the Biggest Mistake in Business, Global Supply Chain Security, The Final Journey of the Saturn V, and Soft Landing: Airline Industry Strategy, Service and Safety.

His book The Distribution Trap was awarded the Berry-American Marketing Association Prize for the Best Marketing Book of 2010. Another work, Direct Marketing in Action, was a finalist for the same award in 2008.

Andrew is founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation Security and a regularly featured analyst for media outlets around the world.

He has traveled to and conducted business in 120 countries on all seven continents.

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