Rediscovering America begins with the Bang of the meaning of Veterans Day: Service and Sacrifice.
Veterans Day is a glorious celebration of our nation’s history replete with the sacred memories of the sacrifices of the heroes who made us the exceptional country we are today. After 232 years, a mere eye blink in the collection of all recorded history, we continue to strive to be better and to fulfill the still incomplete vision of our Founders. Today, I am struck with the awareness that a single day is not sufficient to recognize our indebtedness to those who gave “the last full measure of their devotion” to America and to the cause of freedom for suffering humanity everywhere. Henceforth, I urge that the entire month of November should be consecrated to the lives of the great men and women who went before us, those dead and those among us, whose sublime lives “leave footprints in the sands of time.” Each of us will have his or her personal heroes from whom inspiration flows with an everlasting abundance. I wish to take this holy occasion to enumerate just a handful of mine.
George Washington, of course, will come as no surprise, but James Madison might. He is, perhaps, the most underappreciated and least heralded, of our Founders, even though he is hailed as “Father of our Constitution,” for his indispensable services to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and thereafter. It is the fruits of Madison’s brilliant mind that persuades us that America is a country “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” His legacy is an insurmountable barrier to the deceptions of Critical Race Theory and the indoctrination of systemic racism which is being inculcated into our schools to capture the minds of our vulnerable youth. Let us look into the applicable curriculums to examine what is being taught about Madison to our children and we will have a barometer of whether what is being presented fairly represents our roots or is inimical to them not. It is a supreme litmus test and a logical place for our scrutiny to begin.
Frederick Douglas embraced the contradictions and tensions of his views. In 1852 he delivered the most damning critique of American hypocrisy ever uttered in a speech entitled, “ What to the slave is the Fourth of July.? In 1847 he thundered, ”I have no patriotism. I can have no love for this country…or for its Constitution. I desire to see it overthrown as speedily as possible.” To my mind his 1852 speech is the greatest expression in of righteous indignation against slavery and the inhuman subordination of human beings by that “peculiar institution” in the narrative of humanity’s past. In its magnificent breadth he condemns America for being untrue to its founding principles, its past and its present. He expounds against the evil defilement of sacred American ideals----democracy, freedom and equal rights. but, note well, even in his justifiable rage he gives his approbation to those who believe that the founding fathers meant to eliminate slavey and that the Constitution reflects this. He concludes on an optimistic note. He believes that anti-slavery sentiments will prevail over pro-slavery forces. He closes by stressing the inevitable arrival of freedom and the abolitionist’s promise to fight slavery “whate’er the peril or the cost.” His speech was an anguished cry of the heart, redolent with the experienced pain of abject barbarity. Nevertheless, his breaking heart was not lacking in prescience, as he foretold the tear and blood-stained pages of the chapters of our subsequent years. It was during many decades that the American Dream endured the valleys of the travails of prejudice and climbed to the peaks of the irrepressible solidarity of brotherhood. Douglas knew of what he spoke and it is his uncompromising language we must employ today when rebutting those exponents of an alternate history.
This is what is encompassed by the full meaning of Veterans Day and it forms the basis of what ought to be taught in today’s classes of American history, not to be sugar coated, but neither to be reduced to the absurd proposition that racism is embedded in our structures and that every person is defined by the color of his skin. We are intended to be a united people, not only more than our colors, but more than the sum of our parts, and so is the story of our origins and our becoming.
Take the double amputee Joey Jones the Marine who lost both legs in Afghanistan---he found purpose in family, friends and inspiring others. He says he believes in post-traumatic growth, meaning “you go through tough and difficult situations and on the back end and through recovery, you learn strength.” When we are dealing with a challenging situation, we should tell ourselves what he tells himself. “at least it’s not a bomb.” He says if he had to do it all over again for his country he would unhesitatingly, “only this time I would step left.” Let us be certain that our children learn about our heroes like Joey Jones and the millions like him that are exemplars for us and future generations.
Take Winsome Sears, the newly elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia who said during her victory speech, “When I joined the Marine Corps, I was still a Jamaican. But this country had done so much for me. I was willing, willing to die for this country.” and then, “in case you haven’t noticed I am Black, I have been Black all my life, that’s not what this is about.” Include the life story of Winsome Sears into the teaching of American history and reflect on her life of effort, achievement and gratitude….opportunity, equality and freedom are what it’s all about, it’s not all about race.
Veterans Day is not only a celebration but an ineradicable l reminder that we stand on the shoulders of the giants of those who loved and love their country….they are our instructors, not merely telling us how we should live to honor and serve our country but showing us. We are still fighting to form a more perfect union, it is imperative that we do so together, joined inseparably in the spirit exemplified by our veterans. Happy Veterans Day….next year let’s make it a month-long remembrance and, by next year, let us have the true and complete history of our forebears to replace the divisive and destructive propaganda of the “new racism.”