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Pride in America is Fading Away
by James Glaser February 17, 2010 America has lost a lot of the pride it once had. I was always amazed that Ted Williams, the greatest baseball hitter of all time, in fact, the last player to hit over .400 in a season, said his greatest accomplishment in life was becoming a United States Marine. I can remember the day I became a Marine, too. As a member of Platoon 396 at MCRD San Diego, I marched down the grinder in the hot sun, and I could not believe I was now a Marine. Proud? You bet! Back then I was proud to be an American, too, and I was even proud to be going over to help the people of South Vietnam keep their freedom by fighting the evil Communists of North Vietnam. I don't know when that pride left me. It could have been when I saw the first of many children who were killed by our artillery; maybe it was looking at the aftermath of a napalm run over a village; or it could have been when I saw a row of American dead tucked into their body bags on the side of a landing zone. Since that time, pride in America has been a strange concept for me. I love my country, but I continually have to ask, what the heck are we doing now? The United States armed forces tortured people in Vietnam, we even tortured kids. Mass murder? I didn't see it first hand, but as I look back it was all around me. When I got home, I started to think that all the wrongs I saw were just part of the Vietnam War, and that really, America was that good country I was so proud of. The truth however was that we really are not good guys, and Vietnam was just one more black chapter in our recent history. Going to Veterans Administration hospitals and clinics over the years has let me talk to other veterans from other wars, and the picture they paint is always the same. In war, no matter what the Pentagon or the New York Times says, America is killing innocent children, along with their parents and their siblings. It wasn't just Vietnam. We torture, and we maim in every war we fight. Now, 40 years after my war, I have to ask, do we ever win a war? Sure we won WWII, but that was 65 years ago. Since then have we ever won anything? Did we want to win anything? Have we had a war since the "Big One" that we could be proud of? Grenada? Haiti? Somalia? Iraq? Korea? Have any of these conflicts that changed anything? Did we make the people in these countries free? Are they better off today because we attacked them? I don't think so. Ted Williams was proud to become a Marine, and so was I. There is a world of difference in becoming a Marine, and being a Marine. The first is an accomplishment, because you overcame the mental and physical tests put before you. But after you pass those tests, and maybe after your time in the Corps is over, you realize that you have become a tool of the State, and no matter how hard you try or how good you are at being a Marine, any pride you have depends on how the State used you. America now has a long string of wars on little countries—countries whose military budget, if they have a military, is maybe 1% or less of what we spend on our military. Are we supposed to be proud of these wars? At one time Americans had a lot to be proud of, but with our foreign policy such as it is today, the reason for pride is disappearing. |
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