George Marshall and Masters of the Air.

A Memorial Day Tribute.

As we celebrate Memorial Day, I want to share a dot I connected recently. To a history nerd like me, connecting the dots can be an emotional experience—the moment when you put two different stories together and see a bigger and more important story.

Saturday, I was reading George Marshall: Defender of the Republic. Marshall was a general in the United States military. As U.S. Army Chief of Staff, he worked closely with the executive and legislative departments during World War II to help secure funding and execute the war effort.

At the point I am reading, it’s 1943, and Marshall was wrestling with the realities of war. The U.S. economy was strong, but not strong enough to keep sending troops overseas at an expanding rate. Eventually, they concluded the economy could only supply no more than 100 divisions. Marshall, going back and forth with the legislative and executive bodies, determined they could manage with 90. As a result, they reduced troop strength from 8.2 million to 7.7 million. That meant 500,000 people didn’t have to fight or got to go home.

Part of the reason Marshall and his team felt comfortable reducing troop numbers was the success of the Allied bombings. As I closed the book and my eyes started to swell, my daughters asked me what was wrong. I said nothing was wrong; things just were. And then I told them the story of Marshall and the Masters of Air.

I had recently watched Masters of the Air with my wife, the Apple TV series that follows the U.S. 8th Air Force and their strategic bombings over Nazi-occupied Europe. These were daylight precision bombings. They targeted German military resources, and because these missions were in daylight, they were extremely dangerous. Without sufficient fighter escorts, the bombers were vulnerable to attack.

In the show, you see these regular men flying horrific missions, and you often find yourself wondering, why?

They wondered too. They struggled with it. So many went out, and so few came back. They were decimated—but they still went, and they delivered results. As I read about Marshall’s decisions, it occurred to me that those men were part of the reason he could reduce the number of divisions, staying within the realities of the economy. Their skill, bravery, and sacrifice helped make that decision possible.

Many of those men believed in something bigger than themselves. But I also think many began to ask, why? The answer is that someone like George Marshall had to make impossible choices—political decisions grounded in the limitations of manpower and resources. They couldn’t just throw more people at the enemy. They couldn’t keep up with supplies. But they had found a tactic that worked. It weakened German defenses and supply lines. And that’s part of why D-Day and the invasion of Normandy were successful.

The thousands of pilots who perished in those bombing raids gave their lives so that 500,000 others didn’t have to fight. So the Allied forces could storm the beaches of Normandy and fight back against the fascist tyranny that threatened the free world.

It was the decision made when all the options were terrible, and it worked. That may not bring comfort to every family that has lost a loved one, but people are not perfect. We play the hand we’re dealt with reason, humility, faith, and forgiveness.

So today, let’s remember those men. The ones who flew. The ones who didn’t come home. The ones who gave everything so that we could be here. So that freedom could prevail. So that representative government could succeed.

Peace & Love,

Jeff Mayhugh