Puerto Rico is our ‘Dunkirk in the Caribbean’

In 1940, Britain rescued 330,000 soldiers stranded on the beaches at Dunkirk. Naval ships and small boats piloted by Britons transformed impending tragedy into historic triumph.

America now has its own Dunkirk as it seeks to save lives on Puerto Rico. Current government effort fails to match Britain’s achievement. A need exists for massive use of military and civilian government efforts where roads are impassable, mobilization of the Army Corps of Engineers to jury-rig an electrical grid in days not months, and utilization of federal agencies on a scale never before employed. When the USS Hope with its 800 beds has only seven patients on board as of Oct. 9, something is seriously wrong.

America’s Dunkirk is different than the 1940 miracle on the beaches in France. The emergent tragedy in Puerto Rico is a slow-moving disaster as people die due to neglect, and theAmerican government fails to commit the full might of national resources on behalf of more than 3 million citizens.

With the number of unidentified corpses piling up in various places, it is reasonable to speculate Puerto Rican hurricane-related deaths could exceed the number of lives lost on 9/11. Such an outcome would be a forever judgment on President Trump’s failure to exercise executive leadership to prevent deaths of citizens in peril. As it is discovered in the coming weeks and months how many hundreds have perished, Mr. Trump’s failure will be a part of his legacy no myriad of tweets can mask. The Brits saved an army. America will now be judged by its ability to save uncounted numbers of lives by its response to its “Dunkirk in the Caribbean.”

This story was originally published October 16, 2017 at 2:46 PM with the headline "Puerto Rico is our ‘Dunkirk in the Caribbean’."