Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Many people travel to the United States to see the sights; I think many really want to know who we are and what is it about this country that engages the world so totally. If you have traveled to other countries, it becomes clear – and the reasons are much too numerous to list in one blog entry.
Many Americans don’t know who we are; they think we are about democracy and capitalism and freedom and a quality of life that is hard to match anywhere else in the world. I think we are all these things, but we are far greater than all the shitty rhetoric that politicians recant like automatons.
We are a long line of a particular genetic strain of individual – people who did not like to be pushed around and told what to believe. Our progenitors were an elite group of risk-taking independents – rebels who were unwilling to be stepped on.
The first people who came to our shores showed personal bravery, determination, independence, and will. There is no way you can compare them to the people who stayed in their home countries with petty despots and kings and demagogues.
The only tourist attraction in the United States that really tells people who we are can be seen at the changing of the Guard at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. For 74 years, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year our honor guard of elite soldiers has been guarding that tomb.
It is a profoundly moving experience that in several minutes emotionalizes one’s understanding of what the US is all about. Along with many other men I wept as I watched the soldiers following a routine that never varies and that is conducted irrespective of the weather.
Intellectuals and urban dwellers often find it easy to listen to the beguiling words of the ideological diplomats from other countries. When communism was in its heyday, many American intellectuals and artsy-fartsy liberals found rationalizations to support the obviously inhumane and impractical preaching of communist dogma.
I would bet that even today, the brightest instructors at our liberal universities find logic to support nihilism and the radical revision of our constitutional architecture. It is always fashionable to distance one’s self from the rabble that follows constitutional precepts without questioning. One wants to be elite you know.
City dwellers – the urban detritus that volumizes our country – are not what this country is about. When you go to the farms and rural areas you meet the people who matter. These are the people who join the service and die and come home in caskets. Their families are proud of them and honor them as patriots.
If the United States were under attack from a foreign invader, the first people to wave the white flag would be the Wall Street crowd – who would have figured out a way to reach a compromise that would allow them to keep making money.
The last person to die would be a man or woman in a double-wide somewhere in Alabama. They would die with their rifle in their hands and they would die believing that nobody was going to take their country away from them.
The effete snobs and situational patriots in the city would rationalize their behavior for the sake of survival. I might be one of them - unwilling to die to the last man to preserve this country and our way of life. No country boy would make that concession. They would not construct some petty rationale for saving themselves. They would die without question – as they always have.
You think I am exaggerating and preaching a biased personal attitude that favors the poor or the lowest socioeconomic group for a personal crusade I’m on for some distorted reason. No, I’ve just been around for a long time and I grew up with country people and with city people; with intellectuals and with those with average endowment.
I also know that I’m over generalizing and that there are notable exceptions to just about every observation I have made; but, that does not detract from the truth of what I am saying. Anybody who thinks the United States can be brought down had better know who we really are. And, it ain’t the Washington, D.C. crowd who flex the truth to adapt.
If the Chinese invade Alabama, they better be ready to kill every man, woman, and child in the state, because not a one of them is going to surrender; and, even if some suited zipper-head signs a formal surrender paper, whatever foreign power takes over Alabama should know that they will have to fight the rest of their lives – much like we are having to do in Afghanistan.
If they never saw the beaches of Tarawa and Iwo Jima – strewn with thousands of dead soldiers – from small town America, they are missing a basic lesson about American tenacity and will. I am not myself personally brave, but I thank God that I live in a nation that is overpopulated with brave men. I see them in airports and talk to them on planes; I admire their personal bravery and their dedication to our country and their unwillingness to be persuaded that nationalism is a bad thing.
Undoubtedly, you think I am some kind of pro-military nut; no, I just remember what it was like to be bullied and I watched others bullied. Any bully – a person, group, institution, or country – will back off if they know that you are willing to fight them to the death – even if you lose; they will leave you alone. Intellectuals can always find a way to rationalize allowing bullies to have their way – as many countries did with Hitler.
My simplistic vision of America is a country that will fight until the last man is dead to preserve our way of life. Our willingness to do that ensures that no one will ever want to pay the price to try to take over our country. Not to mention that we have nuclear weapons and we will use them; of course, our noblest intellectuals have some really good reasons why we should destroy all our WMD and take guns away from our citizens.
So if you want to get the spirit of America and you only have one place you can go, skip the Lincoln Memorial (though it is beautiful) and watch our well trained average soldiers honor their dead – and in so doing demonstrate the will of the American people to fight to preserve the best country on the planet.
I would also catch the Silent Marine Drill Team if you want to see something that will give you goose bumps. Every branch of the service has dedicated well trained men and women. The Marines are a bunch of guys who have willingly joined a branch of the armed forces that is unafraid – and they are proud to give their lives for our country. The Marine Corps alone makes me proud to be an American.
Watch this video; if it screws up Google the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and watch one or more of the videos. It will make you even more proud to be an American.
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