What is the cost we pay for getting it wrong?
I have struggled with how to start this particular portion of this essay so I will start off with a little of my personal history. My father was a military man during what has perhaps been the most troubled time in American history. Born in 1920 he survived the great depression, WWII, Korea and the Vietnam war, and for those reasons he got to experience many different cultures. I was the last of his six children born in 1962 in Angeles City, Pampanga province on the Island of Luzon in the Philippines. As such I am a natural citizen of this country born abroad, with no knowledge of my "national" culture because we left before I was even 2 months old. My earliest memories were of the Taiwanese culture where my father was stationed when I was around three or four years old, the music and food are what I remember most, aside from being treated in the hospital for scarlet fever.
My first memories of America came when dad was transferred to Fort Devens Massachusetts when I was around age four. We lived on post and not very far from my fathers oldest son and his children. What I remember most was seeing people who aside from the clothing they wore which looked like my fathers, some of them looked very different from me. I learned from my parents that despite the skin color of these people we were essentially the same underneath. I grew up with friends who were black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American and learned not to see people for their color, rather to see them for who they were as people. I also came to understand that while we were all "created equally" many of my friends were treated differently.
While stationed in Massachusetts dad came down on orders to go somewhere many people had never even heard of, he was on his way to Vietnam for what would become his last overseas combat duty, I was barely five. We moved to Missouri to be closer to dads side of the family and I was enrolled in Henry Clay elementary school. 1967 was not the most pleasant period in American history, there were riots between blacks and whites over the injustices of the stagnant culture and lack of equality despite the civil rights act which had been signed into law in 1965 by then president Lyndon Johnson. As a child who never learned to see color as divisive this was another blow to what had been my perceived reality of equality. After all aren't we all children of the same God?
When dad returned home in 1968 I noticed that the soldiers who had served in Vietnam had been relegated to the same status as people of color. Walking through the airport in downtown Kansas City my father was cursed, had human excrement thrown at him and spit on by people who hated him for no apparent reason that I could see. It never occurred to me that they were doing this simply because of what he chose to make his profession to support his family. I had heard about the protesters in California and other places but it never entered my young mind that there were protesters in Missouri as well. I watched as my father walked across the concourse of the airport to where we were all waiting for him, while he endured the abuse of complete strangers without even acknowledging them. That was when I realized who my earthly hero was.
Dad got transferred to Virginia, and I started noticing that some of the businesses in the area we lived in and not that far from the nations capitol still displayed signs that read whites only. Something my young mind just couldn't grasp. All men are created equal, right? Evidently not, I had more black friends in Missouri than I had classmates of color in Woodbridge. My biggest problem was that my father was in the Army, still not a cool job. One day another kid asked me what my father did for a living and I answered his question as honestly as I could; "he gets up in the morning puts on his uniform and goes to work, then he comes home at night after work?" I guess he thought I was being sarcastic and started a fight with me, I already had to learn how to defend myself because I was often harassed because of my name, I don't remember who won the fight, but then again, who ever truly wins a fight?
Time to move again. Dad came down on orders to go overseas to Turkey, all I knew about turkey was that it is what we had for dinner at thanksgiving and Christmas. The joys of youth. Another year without dad at home and only letters and the occasional phone call. but the year went by fast and he was home. Dad retired from the Army and we were a complete and normal family for the first time in my life. I went to school like everyone else, learning once again how to survive in a new environment being the new kid was something I had become very familiar with. Picked on because I was the smallest, I talked funny (I had a New England accent) at least until they put me in speech therapy because they couldn't understand me. What bothered me about that was that the teachers I had at Henry Clay and in Virginia didn't have any trouble understanding me. Okay, no problem.
School was okay until I got to the 11th grade and I got bored. I told dad I wanted to drop out of high school, I really expected to have trouble with this, instead all he said was I had to give him a good reason why I wanted to. My reason, I was learning the same things that I had been taught in the 4th grade. He signed the papers the following day. Now, what to do with my life. This for me was an easy decision, I wanted to join the Army. I turned 17 in November and mom signed the papers and off I went.
Looking back now I see the many chances we have had as a nation to make the improvements necessary to make this a country with true equality, and for a short time it actually seemed to be making progress. Now it seems that we are beginning to slide back into the past. Politicians are only worried about collecting pay and payoffs from lobbyists and not governing which I thought was the reason we elected them. Aren't they supposed to represent us and not the special interest groups?
In 2016 we elected what I thought was the lesser of two evils, wrong again! We put a person in office who didn't give a thought to anything but his own wallet. His slogan was "Make America Great Again" instead he took us in another direction, he seemed to want to cuddle with leaders like Kim Jong Un, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Victor Orban. Needless to say these people have no idea what a democracy is. Growing up I never understood the fascination with autocrats and the idea of communism, well guess what I still fail to get the attraction. Yet we are looking at the possibility of falling into the abyss of one or both.
Recent History Lesson:
In 2020 after the election was decided and our President elect became Joe Biden the former president decided he would do whatever he could to remain in power despite the fact that he lost the election, he told his followers to come to the capitol on January 6th 2021 promising that it "will be wild". Well it was, I sat in horror and watched as he fired up his cult followers telling them that they needed to fight like hell or they would lose their country, and then sent them down to the capitol building to stop an American tradition, the peaceful transfer of power. While some deny that this was an insurrection fomented by the outgoing president, that is exactly what it was. This led to his 2nd impeachment, one that he was clearly guilty of, yet his cronies in the Senate failed to convict him. Leading to his first indictment in Federal criminal court for election interference. TBD
Next he was indicted in the City of New York for election interference when it was determined that he paid off a porn actress for a sexual encounter he had back before the 2016 election, in which he allegedly paid her $130,000 through his fixer to keep her quiet so she wouldn't go public with her story. Election fraud according to New York statutes. That trial has just ended and the jury will be getting instructions from the judge tomorrow after which they will determine his guilt or innocence.
His third indictment came from the state of Georgia where he was once again charged with attempting to overturn the election results of a free and fair election in that state. Due to legal maneuvering that trial is in the hands of the courts to determine whether it will be allowed to proceed. TBD
His fourth and final indictment is in Florida where he has been charged for allegedly taking documents that are classified from the white house to his home. Now as I said in my previous entry even I know that federal documents do not belong to an individual, rather they belong to the federal government. And this case appears to be a slam dunk, that is if the Supreme Court ever determines that he does not have the sweeping immunity to do whatever he wants as he claims. And, the judge he appointed to the bench and who is in control of the case decides to do her job and set a date for the case instead of bending over backwards to make her master happy. TBD
88+ charges later and only one trial has been completed, waiting on the jury findings of the 34 counts.
What have we got to lose? How about our freedoms, he has already made it clear that he wants to be like the people he admires most. In which case his political enemies will either be killed or dragged before kangaroo courts which will find them guilty of what ever phony criminal charges they can dream up. The diversity that has made up this country since the very first illegal aliens landed on the shores of Plymouth rock and started to over run this country taking whatever they wanted from the natives who were already here is in serious jeopardy. Yet his cult followers scream about the people crossing the border, and now their dear leader has even shut down any attempts by President Biden to seal the border by instructing his minions to sabotage a bill that they helped craft to end the problem in ways that would have been more beneficial to the republican party than to the democrats.
The only thing on the line this November is the country that so many have fought and died to defend. My oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies both foreign and domestic has never expired, and my means of ensuring that my oath is upheld is to vote in the upcoming election. I urge you all to vote as well otherwise the answer to the question in the title is yes, and the price we will pay will be our freedom and quite possibly our lives.
Peace.
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