My July 4, Speech on Patriotism
The last person in my family to serve in the Armed Forces was my Uncle Jack during the Korean War. He suffered a skull injury but fully recovered.
My Dad's side of the family fled Finland to avoid being compelled to fight for Sweden around 1809. They came to America by 1900.
My Mom's father was in the Navy during WWI as a telegraph operator (he was the very first in the U.S.).
Mom and her two sisters joined the Women's Army Corp during WWII.
My parents were Blue Dog Democrats. (They'd vote for a blue dog before they would a Republican.)
I was reared with a strong sense of Patriotism, respect for Government, and a sense of "My Country: right or wrong."
Guess what?
Yeah. You know already.
My best friend, Johnny, derailed all that.
Johnny was a Jehovah's Witness.
It was a religious cult - but thought it was about God and teaching my fellow humans how to avoid Armageddon.
That's on me.
It was a slow process of gradual indoctrination - and I didn't give in without a fight. But - I became a Conscientious Objector and I did end up in Federal Prison.
You know that already about me.
___
AFTER WWII ended
The fight against Communism "by any means necessary" was the beginning of the end of Patriotism because our Government officials began lying to the American people so as to be able to get into wars (thought necessary) and still appear to be a bright beacon of human decency, a shining city on the hill.
JFK was persuaded by his military advisers to invade CUBA.
That was called "The Bay of Pigs" fiasco.
(Our military double-crossed the Cuban insurgents we were invading with and no Air-Cover was provided.)
This drove Castro to seek help from the "other" super power, the U.S.S.R. Soviet Union.
That was called the Cuban Missile Crisis.
I was in the 9th grade.
Simmering on the back burner was VIETNAM.
America was lied to about that for a long, long time by our top leaders.
The "Domino Theory" was behind it all. If you allowed one small Indonesian country to fall to Communism, the whole world would follow.
The U.S. military has estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died in the war.
In 1982 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C., inscribed with the names of 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces who had died or were missing as a result of the war.
America never lost a battle in that war - but - America lost a generation of Patriotic kids.
Now here is my point, read it carefully, please.
IF I HAD NOT MET JOHNNY, I would have gone to Vietnam.
(several of my class mates in High School served. One close friend perished. Bill Borders, may he rest in peace.)
I may or may not have died but I would have done so as a true Patriot.
Unless . . . I became disillusioned by the pointlessness and waste of human life.
I shall never know.
I said all the above to say this:
You can be a PATRIOT and still mistrust your lying government, forked-tongued National Security Agency, politicians, and partisan News outlets.
Yes. How?
Love your country, the fantastic diversity of traditions and nationalities, and the charitable impulse to care for others.
I fully support our young men and women in the armed forces but distinctly disapprove of the wars they are sent to die in.
You can call that dysfunctional patriotism, if you like.
Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia
are foreign countries crawling with American C.I.A. "advisers" and a helluva lot of our troops.
You didn't vote for that and probably know very little that's true about the why and wherefore.
BE PATRIOTIC - just don't be gullible.
End of July 4th speech.
