It is Wednesday January 13, 2021 as I write this. One week since a band of traitors and thieves tried to take over and steal the People’s House of the United States of America. Not two weeks since my birthday, January 1, 2021. No, this is not the country that my father enlisted in the US Army to defend. No, this is not the reason that he traveled 6,000 miles and more to defend the world and people that he did not even know, against a fascist dictator.
As soon as those insurrectionists made their way up the capitol steps, I knew something was wrong. They had permission. Any of us who have ever tried to visit the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., remember well and understand the rigorous security check that we undergo before we are permitted to enter that building. This was wrong. Why did they feel so entitled?
As a baby boomer and protester of the Vietnam War, I never really understood, nor did I have a real connection with WWII. My father rarely spoke about it. But in the summer of 2017, as my wife Carmen and I were traveling throughout the European Union, we landed in the beach town of Grandcamp-Maisey in the region of Normandy for a couple of weeks. This was never a part of our travel plan, but friends of ours from McAllen were spending some time there, so we dropped in to visit them. We were only a few miles from the American Cemetery and the Garden of the Missing at Omaha Beach, so they took us to tour the landmark.
I was moved by the symbolism of the cemetery, and the number of tourists that were visiting the site, as well as the daily flag raising ceremony that we witnessed. Our hosts in Grandcamp, Philippe and Marlene, besides being friendly and very hospitable, also showed a deep adulation toward Carmen and me, that I did not understand. I later found out, that there was still a very deep alliance and a mystification toward Americans. Why were strangers, our soldiers, willing to travel 6,000 miles and more to fight for, and even die, defending their country? This kind of pride in country was new to me. I have only experienced a few moments in my lifetime that have caused me to well-up with as much pride in the USA.
As the demographics change and the political prospects grow dimmer, a sense of fear begins to settle over those who have been in power for so long. As it almost always seems to happen, the convert is more fanatical about what it has adopted than the one that inherits it. Like the rich neighborhood kid that grows weary of losing a game that he invented and has decided that it is time to quit, take the ball and go home, or change the rules. But not this time. This time we are keeping it, we are not changing the rules, and we are charging ahead with our constitution toward the goal of a more perfect union.
This is our time, and this time we win.
To all of the military personnel, the first responders, and everyone on the front lines, thank you for your service!
(Former Laredoan Rolando García (NHS Class of 1967) is an architect who lives in McAllen.)
Excellent, Rolando. There are fantastic monuments to American Armed Forces throughout France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. I was in awe at the Battle of the Bulge Museum in Bastogne, Belgium The Malmédy Massacre Monument in Belgium at the site where unarmed American paratrooper POWs were machine gunned by German SS, and of course, the American Cemetery in Luxembourg where hundreds of U.S. soldiers, including General George Patton, are buried. They don’t forget over there. And many Trump supporters are clueless about living in the terror they want to create to replace our freedoms. Their stupidity runs deep and they are so soaked in ignorance as to be averse to education.