The Unashamed American

Over the years I’ve often been called a “flag-waver.” Sometimes this was meant as a compliment, an appreciation of my patriotism. More often than not, however, it was said scornfully and accusingly, with disdain and distaste, the inference being my allegiance to the United States of America is both blind and ignorant; that I simply don’t know how terribly flawed America and everything American is. They’re wrong. In fact, I believe I have more reasons than most to be “down on America.”

As a Marine I served with and for some martinets, mental midgets, and at least one maniac — an infantry lieutenant who called his riflemen “my worms,” and tried to send two men out into the open just to see if they would “draw fire.” He was stopped by a platoon sergeant with a casually-carried pistol who advised him it was a bad idea. Some Marines took “free-fire zone” too literally. I could be anti-Marine and anti-military. But I also served with men whose unconscious heroism humbled me, and I saw Marines killed by their own kindness and compassion. My Corps, like my country, wasn’t perfect — but in many ways, the best in the world.

My SWAT unit used to routinely provide outer perimeter and “heavy backup” for Secret Service and other government protection details. As a team leader coordinating comms, I was often posted close to political VIPs, and couldn’t help overhearing their conversations. Sometimes I was dumbfounded at their utter contempt for the people — and the Constitution — they were sworn to preserve and protect. The “business of government” seemed to be all about lining their pockets and expanding their empires.

The Fly On The Wall

In a way, even more disturbing was the way they spoke so freely in front of us “bystanders,” as though we weren’t even there. I concluded this only reflected the way they thought of us: like furniture, like mute, mindless beasts. How many of you were shocked when Senator Kerry referred to our troops in Iraq as “dumb grunts”? Not me. I’ve heard similar smears from others. They just weren’t caught on tape.

Am I soured on the system that put them in power? Nope. The same system that sometimes caters to the corrupt and guards the greedy can pull a Ronald Reagan out of Hollywood and a Harry Truman out of a haberdashery in Kansas City. Not perfect, but not bad. Democracy is a messy business, but anything else — everything else so far — has been worse.

During my one brief foray into “sorta mainstream life,” I took a government management job. It was “important work” in planning and logistics. It was mind-numbing, repetitive, seemingly counter-productive at times, but important. It drove me nuts. Finally, at a “team-building” seminar for empty suits, attendees were asked to give examples of poor management practices of their past bosses. One by one, my “peers” spoke passionately and bitterly about unfair allocation of reserved parking spaces, restrictions on use of the “executive conference room,” and other weighty complaints. Their lives had been hell, and their bosses were sadists. Then it was my turn. I couldn’t help myself.

I told ’em that when a superior colludes with enemies to have you and your personnel killed in order to cover up his own corruption and criminal enterprises, that’s “poor management.” Yeah, it happened to me.

The looks around that circle were priceless. My career as an office-dweller was brief. I happily went back to sleeping in the mud, chewing instant coffee crystals and scorching my fingers on hot rifle barrels.

I could be bitter about bureaucrats and bureaucracy, and I’m not. Without those little cogs and wheels, the massive machine that protects half of an ungrateful world couldn’t function. Some of the wheels are square, and some are rotten. It’s a big machine and those things happen.

The Watchdog Of Freedom

Our press is supposed to be the watchdog of freedom. When your watchdog lets intruders in, bites you on the butt and attacks the kids, what are you gonna do? Roll up the newspaper and whack him with it? He is the newspaper! Politically-biased reporting is one thing, but sometimes the sheer incompetence of it stuns me.

Here’s a cute, recent example: A story which apparently originated with Agence France Presse and was circulated worldwide by our “professional journalists” centered around a photo of a middle-aged Iraqi woman, swathed in black, holding what she reportedly claimed were “two bullets fired at her home by US troops” during a sort of drive-by Army-gangster shooting. The premise was, of course, that those murderous, reckless Americans indiscriminately shot up her pad. It got major play, and it was believed. Problem was, those were loaded cartridges; — “unexpended rounds” she was holding.

A pal from 82nd Airborne laughed, waved the photo at me and asked, “So how were they fired at this lady’s hooch? From a slingshot? A blowgun, maybe?” As members of those “accused by association,” he and his buddies took the cluelessness of the press in stride. A farm-raised SAW-gunner from his squad said, “What goes into one end of a cow looks a lot more like what comes out the other end than what goes into a reporter and comes out in the news.” A clumsy simile, perhaps, but I loved it. So, big news agencies can pull retired generals up like turnips to talk for an hour about “millennium warfare,” but they can’t catch a corporal for two seconds to look and tell ’em, “Dudes, them’re un-fahred rounds…”?

I’ve seen much worse, criminally worse, and I could be bitter, calling for government restraints on the press. But I’m not and I won’t, because I’ve been in countries where the press is the government, and the “news” is purest party-line propaganda. Here, we the people have the right and the monetary power to insist on more truthful press. If we don’t, we deserve what we get. It ain’t perfect, but it’s free to be imperfect.

There are many things that deeply disturb me about America. Two of ’em affect and infect all others: First, in all the world, there are few peoples who are more critical of America than Americans. Second is this peculiarly American insistence on perfection. It seems that if our motives in carrying out any effort aren’t provably pure as driven snow, the whole enterprise is condemned as rotten. If our motives appear spotless, then our means are harshly criticized if they’re anything less than precise, convenient and bloodless.

Messy and imperfect is OK with me, as long as it’s free to be that way. But I’m just an unashamed American.