Be Proud to Be an American

My middle schooler, Tony, wrote the following essay in class last week about why you should be proud to be an American:

Be Proud To Be An American

When people think of the United States of America, they think of many things such as eagles, Thanksgiving and our iconic red, white and blue flag full of 50 bright stars.  Yet, our most important traits as Americans is our freedom and rights that god gave us as human beings, also known as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  What if we had never came up with that concept?  People would be locked away in jail just for sharing their opinions.  Take some time and think about that!

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights protect us in a special way that most of us “youngsters” do not realize.  Take Amendment III for example; because of that Amendment we do not have our soldiers coming into our homes anytime they want taking all of our food and sleeping in our nice, warm, comfortable beds.  Also, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights allow us freedom of speech as well as let us have our own bias and opinions.  In other countries they would lock you in jail without a fair trial, even if you were framed.  In the United States, you get to prove your innocence and even if you do not have a penny to your name, you still get a lawyer – FREE.  Those are some examples out of the Bill of Rights.

In the United States, we have a lot of freedom that other countries do not have.  In some Middle Eastern countries, such as Iran, they might cut your hand off.  In China the Communists try to make everything and everyone even (they also only allow you to have one child).  So, next time you speak the Pledge of Allegiance, make sure you mean it and BE PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!!!

Waking up…

I was sleeping soundly like many of us do during the work week.  I was young and living far from home when I awoke to the sounds of a siren and a voice from a loudspeaker.  As my consciousness returned, I quickly recalled that I was not in southern California living in the college dorms at UCSB anymore.  No, I slowly remembered that I had taken a break from college to learn more about the real world and travel.  I had joined the Army, attended training in Texas and Indiana, and was now living in Germany.

The voice and sirens that I heard were coming from a military police vehicle and I was being told to report to work.  The voice also said that it was not known if this was a training exercise or a real world alert.  That is how I found out that the United States had retaliated on Libya in 1986 for, among other things, the bombing of a disco in Berlin that was a favorite hang out for soldiers like me.

This time around, my military service days are memories, which have been replaced by parenthood, teaching, and working on the east coast.  Though I found out about our latest engagement with Libya in a more mundane way, via the Internet, it reminded me of the very real threats that exist outside of our work-a-day lives.  Threats that many of us, even in a post 9/11 world, still appear to take for granted.

How this is going to end is anyone’s guess, though many, as always, are making predictions, but the truth is they do not know.  Meanwhile, most of us wake up to alarm clocks and start our days and only think about these things when we hear about them on the news or when someone brings it up in conversation.

As for me, well I am at a point in life when I am just content to be waking up to a new day, though with far less a sense of certainty about what the future will bring than I had 25 years ago…