Asking the wrong question

The joy in the air was electric, pervasive, and long overdue.

It cannot be described with mere words.

There were 140 million sighs of relief followed by unrelenting tears. But they weren’t timid tears, the kind you quickly wipe off your cheek in embarrassment. They were tears of victory. Everyone had them.

V-J Day had arrived, and the curtains had finally closed over the Second World War, a stage for the greatest generals, the most tumultuous battles, and the most heroic acts of courage known to man.

The Greatest Generation had left its mark on history. All the sweat, blood and unlimited determination had finally ended a war that we had no intention of starting.

War has a negative connotation, and rightly so. But out of the depths of our losses, hadn’t mankind displayed more good than evil during those six years of conflict? Isn’t it just possible war had brought out the best in us?

There is no question that patriotism was our greatest weapon against totalitarianism. And Americans did not look to the definition of patriotism in order to learn how to fulfill their wartime duties, but their actions ended up defining patriotism.

If you were five years old you gathered cotton from milkweed pods to put in life vests for sailors. If you were 10 you collected rubber, aluminum and glass. If you were 18 you joined the service.

If you were a mother, you rationed. If you were 4F, you sold war bonds and worked the factories. If you were too old to fight, you wrote letters, distributed leaflets or served as air raid wardens.

We won World War II because we wanted to.

George Patton told us that, “In war, the only sure defense is offense, and the efficiency of the offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it.”

We are at war, so we must ask ourselves:

What is the condition of my soul? Is the fiery desire for victory stirring within my heart, or are they fading embers?

Maybe the fire was never there.

Members of our Armed Forces are not the only soldiers in the War on Terror. We, too, must be warriors. It’s time for us to put our helmets back on.

The battlefield has switched from Germany and Japan to Afghanistan, and our faith has been shaken. Americans are asking, “Can we win this war?”

Reporters ask the White House, “Can we win?”. The White House asks our generals, “Can we win?”. The generals ask their soldiers, “Can we win?”.

And the soldiers, who know they can, look at us, the ones they fight for. Politicians say they believe in the ability of our troops to win in Afghanistan.

But why should our soldiers believe in us?

Wars are won by an unshakable desire to crush the enemy and provide a safe future for the lives of our children, as well as the life of freedom.

If the flame flickers, it fades. When Americans, people of the greatest nation on earth, ask about a war, “Can we win?”, then it is a war we have already lost.

So let’s get with it, America. We’re going to win this war. The question we should be asking is, “What am I doing to help us win?”

This column will be continued next week.

A Man of Many Guises

President Obama is a man who cannot help but hold a grudge. (Isn’t that right, Hillary?) That is, until the person dies.

This became apparent during the funeral of Senator Robert Byrd, the West Virginia extremist who openly supported the Ku Klux Klan and opposed civil rights legislation. Despite Byrd’s outrageous history as a racist bigot, the president praised him for possessing, “that quintessential American quality, and that is a capacity to change.” (Right. Byrd was an angel. It’s Arizona we should be condemning.)

Obama likes to talk about change. It is an attribute he clearly admires most in people.

And maybe this is why he adores himself so much: he has a greater capacity to change than any president that has preceded him. His wardrobe of personalities, which changes almost as frequently as Howard Dean’s mood swings, is endless, it seems. He is a man of many guises.

Professor Obama is the one we see at press conferences. He lectures at the podium, and with an air of arrogance and condescension, regurgitates long, drawn-out defenses of his agenda, such as the classic, “I didn’t ask for this mess. We may still be in a crisis, but we’d be a lot worse off if we hadn’t taken these drastic measures.”

Maybe he should wear a t-shirt that says, “I’m awesome!” Then he won’t have to waste time saying it anymore.

It was Doctor Obama that showed up to sell his pitch on health care. But instead of being the wise, reassuring doctor we all like, he scared us with his prescription: a hefty dose of socialism.

A lot of Americans are wary of Doctor Obama. He’s the doctor that printed his degree off the internet, is covered in cat hair and smells like cooking sherry. You’re just not sure if he’s capable of life-saving treatment.

General Obama decided it was wrong to try to make an ally out of Iraq, which has an educated public, a well-trained army, and is capable of democratic and economic stability. Afghanistan, he says, is a more realistic target. (Uh-huh. And North Korea would probably become an ally just as easily as South Korea, too. I mean, what’s the difference, they’re right next to each other?)

And of course, when he wakes each morning, he must decide between “cool Obama” and “angry Obama.” He likes to be suave, but after discovering Americans are upset with his administration, he now attempts to manufacture anger to seem more human. (Do you think that if Matt Lauer had asked George Bush why he wasn’t more angry about Hurricane Katrina, his response would have been, “Well Matt, I’m gonna fly down to New Orleans, grab that hurricane by the throat and kick its ass!”?

But let’s be fair—sometimes the president’s anger is real. The sputtering economy is taking a heavy toll on his approval rating, and I’m sure his senior officials are taking some heat from him.

Do you remember the scene from It’s a Wonderful Life when Uncle Billy loses eight thousand dollars, and he and George Bailey are frantically searching for it? George gets upset with the blundering, forgetful Uncle Billy, whose nerves are shot, and yells at him.

I think a confrontation between President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner would be very similar:

Obama: Where’s that bailout money you silly, stupid old fool?

Geither, crying: I don’t know Mr. President, one minute it was here, and the next it was—

Obama: Do you realize what this means? It means bankruptcy and scandal and prison. That's what it means. One of us is going to jail - well, it's not gonna be me!

Yes, the president is a man of many guises. He can switch between liberal and moderate, calm and alarmed, patriot and global citizen.

It’s a shame he doesn’t wear the “commander-in-chief” costume so well.

Why we must care

I wrote the following column, which appeared in the Argus Leader on July 4, 2010, about this famous sentence from the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Things change.
Or at least that’s what the world so often takes the time to remind us, sometimes just as we’re getting used to old habits.
Theories, cultures, and ideas: they’re constantly evolving, and our lifestyles must adapt to accompany them. No one wants to live in the past.
But today gives us one of those rare opportunities when we can look at Mother Nature and tell her that in this case, the rules just don’t apply. On this 4th of July, we remember that the immortal words of the Declaration of Independence, the ones guarding “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” are not altered by the onslaught of time.
Those words are indeed living. But the only aspect of them that fades is the ink with which they were written.
What meaning does that sentence hold for a 15 year-old? It means that regardless of whether you toil in the fields of the Midwest, or you work in a Manhattan office; whether you pursue a life of grandeur and splendor in a bustling city or you hail from the quietest street in the smallest town, you hold an equal piece in the vibrant patchwork quilt of the American dream. All you need is the desire to join.
But apathy exists: perhaps the saddest question that comes from people my age is the familiar, “Why should I care?”
So why should I, an American teenager, reflect on the words transcribed by men who lived in a world so different from mine?
I care because they made my world possible.
I wake each morning in my bed, and not the barracks of a labor camp. I can find employment without the government telling me what my wages will be. I have the option to pledge allegiance to my flag, but I am not forced to swear an oath of loyalty to a czar, an emperor, or a religious ideologue.
I care because the survival of a great nation requires great actions from its citizens. That is why we must all care.
Unfortunately, there are people in this world who do not share the views of Thomas Jefferson and his 54 colleagues. As you read this, evil forces, both known and covert, attempt to perpetrate the demise of our republic.
So we fight back.
Our nation has always been at war—officially or not—every day, since the Declaration of Independence was signed. Our Armed Forces have stormed the plains of Gettysburg, the beaches of Normandy, and the oil fields of Kuwait.
And sometimes we wonder: Why have we always been forced to sacrifice so much? Why do our enemies hate us?
They hate us for what they see in these very pages: free people remembering the words that gave birth to our nation, and paying tribute to generations of Americans whose blood has christened the freedom of others.
All men are born good, but in the course of human events, some hearts are inevitably warped and poisoned by the fear of freedom, and our enemies, too, sacrifice their lives to destroy that freedom.
But therein lies the difference: our soldiers did not lay down their lives for a ruthless dictator, or die for the expansion of evil, but for something greater than themselves; they died for each other, and for each and every one of us.
At the bottom of the Declaration of Independence is an unseen postscript written with the blood of our fallen soldiers. It reminds us what undying devotion truly is.
We must always remember: the cornerstone on which our glorious republic rests is not invincible, so we must rely on the strength of our backs, the resolve of our spirit, and the courage from deep within our hearts to uphold it—and this labor, it is not one of slaves, but one of patriots.
Many things change in this world. And as for the meaning and status of those 35 words—well, I guess there are some things that stay the same after all.