Need To Reset

By Semperpapa

There are times when the events around me are so overwhelming that they begin to occupy a lot of my time. These days, the socio-political vicissitudes my country is experiencing have taxed my ever lasting optimism. When this occurrence happens, I usually force myself to hit the reset button, sort of a rebooting process that actually succeeds in stopping me from packing my family and move it to a compound in Wyoming.

This is one of those moments.

Earlier today, I was spending some time cleaning my yard (those are the kind random moments when my mind leaves my mortal shape and wonders away) and my thoughts started to drift toward my preoccupations for the future of my family, my country. Suddenly my memories took me back in time and the resetting process begun.

Mostly it has to do with the immense fortune I feel I have been blessed with since the day, 30 years ago, I stepped off that aircraft and set foot on American soil, beginning the most incredible journey. I had been blessed with the opportunity to come and live and prosper in America, the country where my only limitation was my willingness to work hard. That one step was probably the most important as it was followed by eventually meeting the person that would become my wife and the mother of my two incredible children.

My understanding, at the time, of the actual greatness of America was very limited, although I really look forward to the day when the law would allow me to become a citizen. I knew inside me America was the greatest country, I just could not rationally identify, isolate and quantify the reasons.

It took me few years to actually begin to realize how truly blessed I was to be an American. The first inclination was at the very swearing in as a US Citizen in 1985, when right after the oath, I overheard two Scottish men behind me, who were there for the same reason and who were now mocking the very ceremony we had just gone through. It was a proof of how deeply I felt that moment when I almost started a brawl in the room.

My journey brought me to work with a man that opened my eyes to the true meaning of patriotism. This man was a retired Sgt. Major in the Marine Corps. Pete had tried to join the Marines at the age of 15, at the end of WWII, but the recruiter, suspicious of the youthful appearance, told him to go home and come back with his mom. So Pete waited and joined after turning 18. Pete was a Korean War Veteran.
This man of unbending honesty and ethics, told me his war stories, he opened my eyes about the “Forgotten War”. Those were the days when I found out about the Chosin Marines, about Lewis “Chesty” Puller. He would allow me to borrow his precious books, which I knew he cherished almost as much as he had once cherished his rifle, and I begun to understand really why America is such a great country. Because common Americans have done and continue to do exceptional things to safeguard our freedom.

I started to increasingly search for those men that, during the course of American history, had symbolized the true nature of our country. Of course there are the famous ones, from the Founding Fathers to great Americans like Abraham Lincoln, but really begun to realize that it was not enough to know the names in the history books, that the greatness of America came form the anonymous private from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the corporal from Igo, California, and the Pfc. from Boca Raton, Florida.
Men and women who gave so much of themselves in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, whose names are only known to a small slice of America, but whose contribution to the whole idea of American Exceptionalism cannot be discounted.

9-11-01 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan and Iraq brought me full circle. By 2005 it became even more personal as my own son was now a Lance Corporal in the Marines and by 2007, I finally found a way to be of service to my country by joining the Patriot Guard Riders.
This was the time when I fully realized the greatness of my country.

I saw it in the dedication of the countless Veterans and non-Veterans to the cause of honoring those who serve in the military. Most of the PGR riders are Veterans,many from Vietnam or the Vietnam era, men and women who served in real tumultuous times for our Nation and who came back from hell only to be ignored at best and vilified at worst, and they are again stepping up to serve their country by making sure that those who sacrifice today for the Nation and their families are protected and honored. Every single one of them has one common saying: never again!

I saw the greatness of America in the families of the Fallen.
I saw it on the Gold Star mom who breaks through her own grief to offer support to that newest member of such painful, eternal club.
I saw it in the parents of the Fallen thanking us after they gave their ultimate gift to our country, our security, our freedom.
Their sacrifice and the sacrifice of their loved one humbling me to the point of tears.

And I saw it in the surprised faces of the men and women returning from their duties, confused and at times embarrassed, but grateful for the welcome home wishes from so many strangers.

So now the reset button has been pushed. My bearings have been re-aligned. My focus regained. Most of all my determination to remain true to my principles and my love for this great nation of ours is as cemented as ever. I owe nothing less to those who have fought and died so my family and I can continue to live in Liberty.

Agreed, there may be a lack of leadership in Washington; we may be facing an ever increasingly intrusive government; we may be in dire economic conditions; our Constitutional rights may be under attack, but at the end of the day we are still the United States of America. We have upcoming members from the newest Great Generation who will be the country’s leaders of a not too distant tomorrow.
CJ Grisham, Peter Hegseth, Bill Russel, Allen West, David Bellavia and many others. How could America go wrong?

Just my thoughts.