Days of remembrance: heed the warning signs

Published April 3, 2013
By Staff Sgt. Cory Ross
819th Global Support Squadron

JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. -- The term,"holocaust," should require no further explanation. The majority of Americans are aware of the horrors and atrocities inflicted upon the Jewish population by Nazi Germany during World War II.

As we look back upon perhaps the single most defining event of the 20th century, I invite you to take a moment and consider the evil humanity has faced and conquered during the time of our parents and grandparents persists and continues to inflict untold atrocity on our world today.

Consider the warning signs that may have been missed or even ignored during the systematic mass murder of six million innocent Jews, and also consider the following atrocities:

In Cambodia, during the Khmer Rouge regime of 1975 to 1979, leaders organized mass killings of ideologically suspect groups, ethnic minorities and so forth. Approximately 1.4 million people were thought to have been executed.

Rwanda, Africa, was the stage of a genocidal mass slaughter in 1994. It is estimated that between 500,000 and 1 million people were murdered during what was essentially a power struggle between the minority Tutsi and the majority Hutu peoples during the course of 100 days. The death toll accounted for as much as 20 percent of Rwanda's population.

In Iraq, during the 1979 through 2003 reign of Saddam Hussein, the number of Iraqis murdered is somewhere between 250,000 to 500,000. Firing squads, poison gas torture, maiming and imprisonment were the primary causes of deaths for thousands under the Hussein regime. Aside from the physical toll, Saddam also left a lasting psychological scar on the Iraqi people. He utilized terror and threats to create a population filled with uncertainty and distrust of one another, effectively herding them into his regime's control despite the very acts he perpetrated against them.

April is a time to remember the men, women and children that were victims of the Holocaust. However, it is also an opportunity, perhaps even a morale requirement, to open your eyes a bit wider and realize the legacy of the Holocaust did not end with the liberation of its victims. Terrible acts are still inflicted upon innocent people every day, and the only counter is for people, like you and me, to recognize those warning signs and act to prevent them. As descendants of "The Greatest Generation," the bar has been set incredibly high for us. The result of failing to prevent genocide in the future would be the greatest tragedy of all.