Mike Thompson: “I have followed with increasing distress the events surrounding the Smithsonian Institution's exhibit on the Enola Gay…”

“I have followed with increasing distress the events surrounding the Smithsonian Institution's exhibit on the Enola Gay and the end of World War II. With each passing day we are made privy to revelations of an offensive and unrecognizable telling of the great struggle to protect the United States and free the world from the tyranny of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Many of our citizens who have proudly worn the uniform of our military and offered their lives in the service of our Nation, have expressed justified outrage that the Nation's repository of collective memory should be so callously dismissive of the salient issues involved. Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime were responsible for the unspeakable horror upon tens of millions of people in Europe. Indeed, today marks the 15th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a striking event which reminds us of the tyranny of fascism. Imperial Japan launched a calculated attack on our Nation in the predawn light of December 7, 1941, and precipitated a war which saw excruciating suffering visited upon the people of Korea, Manchuria, and the military forces of the United States. And now, the institution which for over a century has served as the premier repository of our cultural, intellectual, and technological history has decided to portray the noble, titanic struggle against evil as nothing more that a power struggle against moral equivalents. I am appalled that our national history is being rewritten.…”