I was asked once by a person who is not an American, “What is a true American?” It was on the eve of Memorial Day Weekend.
My answer, written in 1973 originally, and maybe a little corny, but here is what I said:
A true American is just that, no less no more, just an American. That doesn’t include any hyphenated names before the term American, such as Afro-American or Mexican-America, it means simply an American.
It is a man, a woman, or a child who believes in American values, the concept being, as an American you can reach as high as you want to aspire to. There should be no constraints for anyone to achieve anything in America. You can be or become anything you want to be, with only a few exceptions to that statement. I chose to be a commercial pilot those many years ago, and I had my day doing what I wanted to do. There were few obstacles to me if I wanted something because, it was there to me as an American.
Some people are not as smart as others. Because of that, some won’t be a doctor or a scientist, simply understood and kept in perspective, many of us will be the plumbers and the electricians, while others will work the fields, or sweep the floors, but as an American, most of us have choices to do whatever we want. Remembering of course that you can’t truly legislate equality, or an intelligence level. A person confined to a wheel chair will not somehow miraculously rise and walk, just because someone wants it to be so. Of course there are exceptions. Sometimes it isn’t fair, and it isn’t easy. Americans will usually only be limited by themselves in the final analysis.
Life isn’t fair. You live, you suffer at times, we experience incredible sadness, and in other periods of our lives we discover they are reserved for periods of great happiness. It is as it should be, the equality we are dealt from birth. In the end we all die. That is a truism. In that respect only, we are truly equal. Life isn’t fair, and you cannot legislate happiness along with fairness and equality.
One of the greatest gifts bestowed to people in America, is the great fortune of having been born there. It is no secret people from all over the world want to come to America. We never hear about people clamoring to get into North Korea, Russia or China. There are reasons for that. At one time immigrants came to America for freedom, sadly anymore they come for the money. To be an American is a gift of enormous proportions.
A true American will roll up his sleeves, and dive in when he is needed anywhere a job needs to get done. When disaster strikes anywhere in the world, Americans are the first to come to the aid of those victims, regardless of where they are, or who they are. Americans are a generous and compassionate people, we send money, food, medical supplies, trucks and tractors, and we send our expertise. In return, we get stabbed in the back by those jealous of us, and it happens all too often by those at home, which is a perplexing problem. Americans should all be grateful for whom we are, and what we represent anywhere we go in the world.
Additionally, lest we forget the sacrifices Americans have made on behalf of the rest of the world, we must be aware of the thousands who are buried in foreign lands in straight rows. Simple plots of soil marked by a head marker with a name and a date engraved on them. These were the best America had to offer, the cream of the crop who were cut down in their youth, fighting for some foreign nation, and long ago forgotten for their having given up everything they had for someone else’s freedom. Each one of them are true Americans. We should always be reminded of those veterans who are still among u,s and be thankful for their having given up pieces of their lives in service to America.
Unfortunately, the light of freedom which burned so bright, and was seen all over the world in a time when freedom was a precious commodity to millions; it once beckoned to those in need in foreign countries. Today it is just a faint flicker of its former self. Anyone who is an American should be proud to be an American, but sadly, many are not. The spark of freedom, once made us so proud to be a true American, is barely a glimmer these days. Once to hear God Bless America, or to see the Stars and stripes fluttering in the wind was a pleasure to most of us. The brightness of freedom’s torch is fading in the darkness of the blackness of tyranny.
My question to you is, in your opinion what is a true American?
crcaseyboy 