July 19, 2026

By Arthur H. Gunther III

thecolumnrule.com

Oh, the marchers were so resplendent in their dark, well-fitting clothes, not military, not all alike but still so uniform that their gait was given in perfect step with stirring rhythm, a cadence raising goosebumps meant to make the heart beat with “patriotism” even as it conveyed obedient command. The people, down on their luck, long without pride and tired of looking for hope ate it up. Young women stirred with thought of continuing the line of march.

War, so much of it, had hit home in the telegrams of sons and daughters dead; bombs had reached the village square, its shops, the baker’s house and the church too. Did God vacate?

Now the battles were over, and no one was sure who won. Now there was economic strife, and for how long? Who could bake for the people without flour? Who would work the farm with the farmer gone? Who would toil in a factory destroyed by war but which made armaments anyway, now not needed, at least for the moment.

Behind the line of march, on the street cleared of rubble, in a shiny classic vehicle hidden but always on the ready, was the thinker, a man of self-proclaimed promise, a so-called rescuer.

He and his minions would put bread on the table, heat in the rebuilt house, create jobs for all, give the nation back its pride, which it could have kept by not going to war in the first place.

The price of salvation? All the people had to do was to stop thinking. “Aren’t your heads tired?” the leader asked. “Why bother? I can do it for you. Let me feel your pain.”

Way back in the line of march, pushed off the road, were the ones who weren’t buying the message, including those who warned that the cost of war is always “in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” (Dwight Eisenhower, April 1953).

The voices of those who objected were drowned out by the military music. And by those tired of thinking. Cheering watchers instead looked toward the resplendent line of march, mesmerized.

Oh, it is easy not to think. Let someone else do it. “Bring me my bread, please. Turn up the cadence, and arrest those who question our leader.”

The writer is a retired newspaperman.

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