I was taking the adversary course at TOPGUN when the first Gulf War started in 1991. When my training was finished I took a trip across the US to South Carolina to visit friends and then to Denver to see family before heading back overseas. There was an amazing thing going on at the time. People everywhere were waving flags. They were buying them to stick in the windows of their cars so they rippled in the breeze as they drove. People invited me over or took me out to dinner just because I was in the military. Even though I wasn't in the war zone they were proud that I was serving, and they were proud to be Americans. I'd like to know what's wrong with that? What's wrong with being proud of our country today?
We have a president going around bowing to petty half-wit dictators, Muslim tyrants, and now the communist despot that rules China as if we are beholding to them. Last year he continually apologized to the world as if we had something to be ashamed of.
Let's get something straight. Most of the world survives because of America's benevolence. The billions we pump into fledgling, struggling democracies is the only thing that keeps some of those governments running. The food and medical aid we send all over the globe is the only thing that keeps millions of people from starving and dying of disease. When the tsunami devastated the entire Indian Ocean rim in 2005 who was the first there with an aircraft carrier providing aid, and who gave more to help the victims than the rest of the world combined in spite of the Muslim world protests that we weren't doing enough? Who finances by itself 25% of the United Nation's budget and all of its humanitarian programs, even when the UN's agenda is generally anti-American? When the Iranian city of Bam suffered a massive earthquake in 2003 who sent aid even though Iran is a bitter, terrorist propagating enemy?
Has America made mistakes? Sure, who hasn't? But when is the last time you heard an Islamic leader apologize for the brutality Muslim governments inflict on their own people, not to mention the terrorism they export world wide? When is the last time you heard China apologize for all its political prisoners and suppression of freedom? America's biggest mistake is giving foreign aid at all to penny-ante dictators and corrupt governments that aren't the least bit grateful and laugh all the way to the bank while we go broke propping them up.
In 1991 Lee Greenwood's song, Proud to Be an American, was the rage of the country. It needs to be again. I am proud to have been born in America and to produce a birth certificate to prove it. I am proud to salute the flag every time it is raised or the National Anthem is played. I am proud to recite the Pledge of Allegiance including "under God." I am proud to claim the Christian heritage of our nation, a heritage like no other nation in the world has ever seen. I am proud that because of that heritage and no other, we are the benefactor nation of the world. We have nothing to apologize for.
America is the greatest nation on earth. Let's be proud of it, and let's be proud to be Americans.
Good blog, Lance!! As always, you nailed it! Thank you for mentioning Lee Greenwood's song, it triggered the following wonderful memory for me. As you know Lance, there isn't much that is sweeter than a small child singing, especially hymns and anything patriotic.
ReplyDeleteOur then 3-year old son (now almost 29) would listen to, and sing along with Lee Greenwood's song, God Bless the USA/Proud To Be an American, on his bright red My First Sony Walkman that hung around his neck. He even nailed the cymbal crash in the last verse with a loud, "PSHHHH." John heard that song first when he spent a week flying a group of stars on a USO tour in 1984. He was in the Navy and we lived in Rota, Spain. It was called The Happy Days Tour. He immediately bought the tape when he got home and Andrew would listen to it all day. I think we still have that cassette tape somewhere.
Great memory. Thanks.
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