Finneran: A Good War & a Foul Deed

Finneran: A Good War & a Foul Deed

He came like a sneak in the night, like an assassin on a mission most foul.

His crime was against the memory of brave young men, whose glories are held in families’ hearts and whose souls rest in the bosom of God.

The assassin is a coward, despicable in his stealth and his desecration of hallowed ground.

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The incidents are by now well known.

The World War II Memorial in South Boston and numerous veterans’ and police officers’ gravestones in Mount Hope Cemetery were defaced with a black oily substance in the middle of the night. The dead of night timing of the crime says something about the perpetrator’s courage of conviction. What an utter coward. And what a deranged immoral fool he must be.

World War II was a good war. If any war can ever be characterized as a good war it is World War II. Any person familiar with the deranged and hateful crimes of Adolf Hitler would agree. Any person familiar with the brutalities of Japanese invasion and conquest would agree. These were barbaric nations, intent on world domination.

The Allied powers were forces of good. The Axis were forces of evil. Let that be clearly stated, let that be clearly understood.

And the attack on Pearl Harbor stirred America away from its hopes for avoidance of yet another silly European conflict. The attack drew America’s blood and American ire.

It’s a curious thing but communities like South Boston, Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roslindale nurture a quiet love of country, a patriotism that rests unseen until a moment of moral urgency emerges from the fog of diplomacy and competition. I visited the South Boston Memorial yesterday. Not surprisingly, it is a beautiful memorial. Southie does things right.

The assassin aimed his oily dagger where it would do the most harm, right across the names of those who gave their lives for his obnoxious mis-used freedom. What struck me yesterday was the sheer number of names chiseled upon the granite. Southie gave well more than a hundred lives to the cause. What strikes me still is the thought of those many Gold Star mothers whose young sons came home in coffins. Southie gave its manhood to the cause of freedom.

So did Roslindale and Mattapan, host communities to Mt. Hope Cemetery. There the assassin painted with a very broad brush, targeting the graves of veterans from the Civil War as well as World Wars I and II. In further insult to decency and respect, he tarnished the markers of police officers killed in the line of duty.

Every single one of those graves at Mt. Hope contains the body of a man ten times a better being than the assassin. Every single name chiseled on the South Boston Memorial represents a man ten times a better being than the coward.

War is a bitter and horrid condition. Wise people do their very best to avoid it. Evil people do their best to exploit the hesitancy of wise people. And perhaps most tragically of all, it is young men and women who pay the price of miscalculation. These fallen sons were in the prime of life and their sacrifice came at great cost to their families. Theirs was a noble cause. The assassin’s was a foul unspeakable deed.

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio