The Patriot’s Dilemma

  

Statue of Liberty Bicentennial 1976

A friend of mine wrote to me, “I will not be celebrating the Fourth as a patriot. This is sad, and a departure from past years. I feel little regard for what my country has become—a country I once marched off to fight for.”

 

He enlisted in the Marines during the Vietnam War and became a second lieutenant. He wasn't driven by politics. Fresh out of college, he believed serving his country was simply the right thing to do.

 

Fate intervened in my own life. By the time I graduated, I was married and my draft status was changed to 3A; the Vietnam War was still in its infancy.  I opposed the war, but I never sought ways to avoid military service. Timing made the decision for me.

 

Even so, I always thought of myself as patriotic. It was never difficult to separate disagreements with one administration from my affection for the country itself. Governments came and went. America endured and I was proud to be an American, warts and all.

 

That feeling has changed.

 

I'm told I shouldn't let the current administration diminish my patriotism or prevent me from celebrating America's 250th birthday. I understand the sentiment. But to me, this celebration no longer feels like the broad, nonpartisan commemoration envisioned when Congress established America250. Instead, it has become something more closely identified with one political figure and one political movement, the same movement that fomented the events of Jan. 6, 2021  Fairly or unfairly, that has made it difficult for me to participate with the same enthusiasm I once felt.

 

I've done the math. I've been alive for one-third of our nation's history.

 

That's a long time to watch America struggle toward the lofty ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and later protected by the Bill of Rights. Progress was never smooth. We stumbled, sometimes badly. McCarthyism stained our politics. Vietnam and Civil Rights divided the country. Watergate shook confidence in government. Yet despite those setbacks, I always believed the overall direction was forward—that each generation expanded liberty a little further than the last.

 

Today, for the first time in my lifetime, I find myself wondering whether that long arc has begun to bend in the opposite direction.

 

Perhaps that explains why I find myself thinking nostalgically about the Bicentennial in 1976. Although we were already living in Connecticut, my thoughts go to New York City and the magnificent Operation Sail. The country was still recovering from Vietnam and Watergate. Gerald Ford occupied the White House. Confidence in government had been badly damaged.

 

Yet I never questioned my patriotism.  And I was thrilled by Operation Sail.

 

I have written before about that remarkable celebration and posted photographs (there are others atthe link not pictured here) that I discovered years later, photographs perhaps taken by my father, who was a professional photographer.

USCGC Eagle and the USS FORRESTAL Operation Sail

 

Among them is this image of the USS Forrestal. Scarred by the tragic flight deck fire the Vietnam War, she nevertheless sailed proudly into New York Harbor for the Tall Ships celebration. Somehow she seemed to embody the country itself but still moving forward.

 

July 4 during those Connecticut years we were usually on our boat with our sons, overlooking the fireworks along the Connecticut shoreline. On very clear nights we could also see them in the distance across the Long Island Sound along the Long Island shore.  Sometimes we’d leave the boat at our marina and take a blanket to the beach for a BBQ with friends and to dreamily watch the fireworks together.   But it was never just about the fireworks. We understood what that day represented.

 

By 2014, my Fourth of July reflections had become more cautionary. President Obama was in office, partisan divisions were deepening, and I worried about growing voter apathy before the midterm elections. Yet I still ended that essay with some optimism:

 

 "The story of our forefathers' struggle to conceive a new nation out of many points of view is what July 4th must be remembered for the next time we, the citizens, go to the polls to vote. E Pluribus Unum! Unless we can find common ground so our legislature works, and we can stop the march toward divisiveness and corporatocracy, July 4th will be nothing more than a fireworks show for the general amusement of a non-enlightened population."

 

Reading those words today, I realize my concerns have deepened rather than disappeared. I worry about the independence of our institutions. I worry about the integrity of future elections. Most of all, I worry that the far right increasingly treats political opponents as mortal enemies. And today that movement enjoys unprecedented power within the federal government.

 

Perhaps that is why this Fourth of July will be quieter for me than most.

 

I won't be attending fireworks or patriotic celebrations beyond spending time with friends. Instead, I'll be thinking about the remarkable experiment begun 250 years ago by men who believed that free people could govern themselves—not perfectly, but honestly, under laws rather than personalities.

 

To me, patriotism has never meant cheering for whoever occupies the White House. It means remaining faithful to the ideals that transcend any president: constitutional government, the rule of law, the peaceful transfer of power, and the conviction that our democracy is always worth defending—even from enemies within.

 

So today and tomorrow I will celebrate those ideals. If patriotism means remaining faithful to those ideals even when your heart is heavy, then the friend with whom I began this essay is, to me, a true patriot.