Friends,

Fixing breakfast this cold, Saturday morning, hoping for a couple of days of thaw this early January, I got to thinking about the state of our country. Not the state of our foreign relations or the political process or the economics of the country at large, but the state of our citizens’ regard for our country. I am a mid to late baby-boomer. Being born in early 1947 I don’t remember World War II and all the sacrifices that went along with it. Obviously, my parents went through it as did my brother, but was too young to understand it. He was three when the war ended.

As I was growing up in the ‘50s we played cops-n-robbers, cowboys-n-Indians and such. But we always knew who the real bad guys were. They were the Nazis, the Japanese and the Communists (to our young minds, the word Fascist never equated and the Korean War was still fresh). I remember playing war and several of us had some surplus gear brought home by friends and family. But, during this “war play” I don’t ever remember anyone volunteering to be a Nazi or a Japanese, or a Communist. We had plenty of guys who wanted to be the robber or the Indian. But no one wanted to be the Nazi or the Japanese, or the Communist. These guys were just too bad to even pretend.

Looking back on those days there was a lot of sacrifice that had taken place, starting in the ‘30s and the Great Depression and Dust Bowl years through the War. During the Great Depression and Dust Bowl there was no choice; people were without work and without the means to support themselves. During the War the national sacrifice was also out of necessity, but for a different reason. The citizens of this wonderful republican experiment knew that if we lost that war our way of life would be forever changed, and not for the better. They knew that it was an all-out effort on the part of the entire populous.

When we went into the Vietnam War the country’s attitude had changed, as well as the thought process of the citizens. The people who were called upon to fight that war had not had to grow up with the thought of sacrifice. Our parents may have talked about it but we didn’t have to experience it. We had had it pretty good growing up. Most of us had good homes, plenty to eat and a great deal of concentration on doing what made us feel good and “self-actualized.” The extreme concentration of Communist influence on the press and entertainment industry did a lot to punctuate that emphasis on “self.”

This emphasis has carried on to today. As little as the average citizen on the street will admit, we are in a war today. While life under the Nazis would have been horrendous, life under Islam would be far worse. Imagine the thought-police banging on your door and dragging you out in the middle of the night, never to be heard from again just for questioning their “holy” book. Or your wife or daughter being “married off” for a couple of hours to some imam who takes a fancy to them. After all, women are somewhere less than human to them. And for those of us with necks slightly redder than they should be, how would you like being banned from eating bacon?

I think that people of today, at least of my generation, who lived through the Cold War don’t understand why we have to sacrifice for this war against Islam. After all, we didn’t have to sacrifice during the Cold War and we came out okay, didn’t we? Aren’t we being told on a near daily basis that Islam is a religion of peace? If that is the case, why did Major Hassan kill over 30 people, his fellow soldiers, at Ft. Hood? Why did Mohamad Atta and his buddies fly airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? Why is the Islamic State directing its followers to attack us, the infidels, using all possible weapons?

Now, let’s get back to the topic of sacrifice. How many of our citizens are, or would be inclined to sacrifice their livelihood, or their comfort to defend our way of life? I do a lot of business networking and come in contact with a lot of people. It astonishes me when I look around and realize that less than 20% of all those with whom I network are veterans. An astonishing number of these folks have never served, have never sacrificed and have no intention of doing so. There is a lot of lip service given to supporting the military personnel but that support is from afar. We hear that same level of support for our Law Enforcement brothers and sisters.

How many of us would stop and help a police officer in trouble? Unfortunately, that would take us out of our way and make us late for an appointment. The officer’s “backup” will be there in a minute, after the bad guy has killed him. If the riots and protests we’ve seen on TV and the internet were to come to our community, how many folks could the police and sheriff’s department depend on to support them if called upon? Are we going to wait until the governor calls out the National Guard?

The founding fathers looked upon every man as a member of the militia. We have lost that mindset. We are content to let someone else fix the problem. Where would we be if our fathers had taken that attitude when Pearl Harbor was attacked? We would all be speaking German and/or Japanese.

Today, instead of direct attacks on our borders we have infiltrators who have come and are continuing to come across our borders to take over our country in the name of their god. We even have “Christian” churches that have embraced these infiltrators as brothers.

Our fathers stood up for this great republican experiment. It is past time that this generation did the same. When you are called upon to serve in some way, don’t say “I don’t have time.” Make the time, whether it is to serve in the military, become a police officer, or to sit on a county board and help with the hard decisions our public servants have to make. When someone cuts down this great country, have the backbone to call them down on it. Remember, this is the freest country that has ever existed on this planet.

These are just a few thoughts from an old sailor who is sick and tired of so-called “citizens” doing everything they can to degrade our country and sabotage our country’s effort to keep us free. We are just coming out of eight dark years of an administration that led the way to the embarrassment of our nation. It is past time that we start working together to bolster this country to bring it back to the preeminence it once enjoyed. As Abraham Lincoln said in his December 1862 address to Congress, “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.” He was referring to ending the Civil War, but couldn’t those words justly apply to the threats that loom large today? Keeping this country free is not just the responsibility of the police or the military, it is incumbent upon us all.