Sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. To celebrate America’s 250th Anniversary, here are 250 words highlighting my thoughts about my own place in our Country’s history.
At a very young age, I experienced two recurring dreams. The bad one first, I dreamt I was resisting having a vacuum-tube device pressed into my brain, which would turn me into a robot. The second one had me dreaming of flying. It would take no great mind to convince me that both dreams had to do with freedom and the love of it.
Skip a few years, and I would be watching “Mr. Wizard,” the kids’ TV science show that fascinated me with its explanations of how things worked.
Later, Richard Feynman would wax eloquent on the Eureka-like joy of seeking and understanding reality with his book “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.”
Still later, I would be reading about Aristotle’s law of non-contradiction and Bacon’s scientific method, both tools for the mind to reason about what works and what doesn’t in the world we live in.
And what has seemed to work for me throughout my life is searching and striving for personal virtue. My time at West Point, in particular, has impressed upon me the importance of character, with one of its finest embodiments being George Washington. Here was a person who understood that freedom, liberty under law, really works. Indeed, it has made America great! So, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!
(This is the earliest known image of George Washington painted
in 1772 by Charles Willson Peale at Mt. Vernon, VA)
Thanks, Suzanne, for including my 250 words on America’s 250th birthday. Just wanted to alert everyone that the YouTube at the beginning has a slight delay in playing the music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Definitely worth the wait, though! 🙂