True Patriotism Values Our Freedoms, Markets and Opportunities

During a blisteringly frigid duty assignment at a small Air Force base in Sondestromfjord, Greenland, I experienced an even colder lesson about patriotism.

In the darkness, only the sound of “Tapps” trumpeted on a loudspeaker offered evidence of another passing day of a seemingly endless four-month-long Arctic night, thus also concluding my otherwise greatly valued four-year voluntary enlistment.

The time-honored protocol upon hearing that eloquently haunting bugle call at every military installation was for all activities to immediately stop, personnel to stand at attention facing in the direction of an American flag, and to salute others who have bravely suffered and died for freedoms we enjoy.

Being very cold, and inexcusably believing myself to be alone in the dark, I stood silently but with hands remaining in parka pockets.

However, I wasn’t unobserved after all.

My two-person air traffic control team partner and friend — a master sergeant and World War II veteran whom I greatly respected — witnessed my failure to salute and expressed profound personal offense.

I now vividly remember that painfully shameful experience more than six decades later.

Although believing my military enlistment was in some real measure out of love for country, it was also during a period of somewhat relaxed complacency of a nation then at peace when unimaginably destructive wars occurred somewhere else “over there.”

Previous July 4th events, for example, reflected my small Midwestern town background spirit of gratitude for country we all took for granted; parades of high school marching bands and crepe paper decorated floats, community fried chicken luncheons in parks, and evening choral performances punctuated with magical fireworks.

I later experienced a very dramatic new awakening regarding the relevance of U.S. “patriotism” upon being among the first Americans invited to visit with technical Russian space program leaders on numerous trips immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Whereas the richly funded space program was filled with crown jewel achievements such as launching Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin to orbit, that top-down supply side system of government seemed incapable of producing quality automobiles or public services that met basic needs of citizens or global market demands.

Despite a rich cultural heritage that inspired some of the world’s most renowned musicians, ballet performers, artists and poets, the general population work-reward ethic was abysmal with rampant alcoholism.

And most tragically, that same highly enlightened culture somehow allowed a tyrannical Marxist regime to murder millions of its citizens including families of greatly treasured friends.

In my view, true American patriotism doesn’t suggest that our people, as individuals, are smarter, talented, nor more compassionate than elsewhere.

In my personal experience I have known Russians who are certainly as wise, morally principled, and generous, those who care for the futures of their children just as deeply as we do.

Rather, patriotism passionately acknowledges the vital importance of our constitutionally based free market system that guarantees equal rights and opportunities for all inherited from those who paid the ultimate costs with their lives, parents, sons, daughters, and siblings.

My all-important lesson is that those sacrifices warrant genuine heart-felt salutes on the darkest days and coldest nights whether anyone else is watching or not.