An American Patriot’s Journey

     On the 250^th Anniversary of our founding, I have some reflections on my American journey:

My Ancestors: 

• 1626 – my 7^th Great-grandmother was born in Jamestown, VA.  My wife’s ancestors go back to the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  Our ancestors ‘got on the boat’- a journey that took courage and vision. 

Massachusetts Bay Colony Charter – 1629

• 1780 – my 3^rd Great-Grandfather fought at the Siege of Charleston, was taken prisoner, released only to find upon return home his home had been burned by Loyalists – a not uncommon occurrence.  He re-enlisted to fight on.

• 1830s – 2^nd Great Grandfather arrives in Charleston from Ireland. 
• 1898 – Silver Springs, SC renamed as Neeses, SC in honor of my Great Grandfather, Mayor, because he funded the railway expansion in the town.
• 1920s – my grandfather built and staffed a large hospital in West Virginia coal country, and it was named after him – I was born in that hospital.

Journey notes:   

• 1969 to today – we have lived literally from ‘sea to shining sea’ here in the USA; twice each in England and Germany and, of course, Vietnam.  Visited 26 countries and lived in eleven states.  On these occasions, we contrasted our lives in the US vs the lives of the descendants of those who stayed home and didn’t ‘get on the boat’!  They inherited a life of birthright opportunity versus our hard work and merit opportunity; group think (all houses the same color!) versus rugged individualism; work ‘just to have a job to retire as soon as possible’ mentality vs our ‘entrepreneurship, change the world, go to the moon’ ethos.   We saw the stark contrast in 1976, when in rural England, we visited a Canadian teacher who had to get her power through a coin box device in her cottage much like a parking meter.  If she wanted hot water for a bath, she had to put in more coins.  Where there is no vision, the people perish (or suffer).

• 9^th of November 1989 – at the Army War College, I watched with my seminar mates as the Berlin Wall came down on TV monitors tuned to CNN.  As President Reagan had told his incoming Secretary of State, his strategy for the Cold War:  We win; they lose.  I was privileged to serve with Americans who made that happen.
• 1993 – We were fortunate to tour Poland with one of my brigade chaplains who was born and grew up in Poland.  When visiting his family, we saw first-hand what the Communists had created for their citizens – blockhouse concrete apartments aka Orwells’ 1984,small; the parents’ bedroom doubled as the living room; they waited nine years to get a home phone.
• 1993 – for our anniversary that year we stayed in the former holiday villa for the Czech communist party in Karlovy Vary.  Drank their vodka!

• 1997 – my wife’s co-worker whose parents were boat refugees from RVN; when learning that I had fought in Vietnam, stated—‘your husband was one of the freedom fighters’!
• In 2012 – visited the American Cemetery at Normandy, France. As we were leaving, several buses of French school children arrived.  Upon exiting their buses, they proceeded to the American graves to lay flowers on the markers of our fallen.  They are grateful still. 

• 2016 – when traveling with a group organized by our former Polish priest, we visited Nettuno Cemetery which is the resting place for Americans who died in the Italian campaign – particularly Anzio landing.  A fellow priest traveling with our group, a French paratrooper famous for skydiving in his cassock, wept openly over the graves. 

• 2016 – on a trip to Washington DC, we visited the Korean War Memorial; solemn, yes, but at the very end of the memorial was a tour bus of Koreans who were laying wreaths at the site to express their thanks to the sacrifice of those American soldiers decades before.  They haven’t forgotten, either.

• 1995, 2012, 2018 – we visited battle sites in France, Belgium and Netherlands where our immediate ancestors had fought: my godfather was shot down over Bremen and remained a POW until the end of the war; my uncle was wounded in Normandy; my father was a bomber mechanic; Sallie’s a bomber pilot.  Two of her great uncles fought in WWI.  One fought in Korea.  We were reminded of their sacrifice and legacy which we were then living.

• 2018 – on a short visit to Venice, Italy while enjoying our hotel view of the Grand Canal, a Frenchman dining next to us, upon learning a bit of our history, said to us as he was leaving, “Thank you for saving us, twice.”
• 2018 – we visited the WWII Museum in New Orleans and came away humbled but also reinforced our knowledge of what Americans can do.

From 1947 to the present – we have lived the “American Dream”.  We noticed that all over the world it was known what was meant by the ‘American Dream’: Opportunity, Freedom to Invent yourself as you chose, to truly engage in the pursuit of happiness, a country where ‘stuff’ just worked!  And we also noted that there was no such British or German or French or Russian Dream.  Only the American Dream—all because our ancestors ‘got on the boat’ with a vision and made our Dream a reality.