Proud to be an American?

As we get closer to Independence Day, it’s only a few days away, and I can smell the gunpowder and hear the pop of random fireworks, even as I type this.  I can hear Lee Greenwood’s attempt at a new National Anthem with every explosion in the sky.

“And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.  And I won’t forget the men who died, that gave that right to me.  And I gladly stand up, next to you, and defend her still today.  Because there ain’t no doubt, I love this land!  God bless the USA…”

While these words have become ubiquitous in times of war and national tragedy, I want to explore them a little to see if they’re the correct message to send to an entire population that doesn’t seem to understand what pride means, and how pride always seems to be the cancer that kills great societies.

Before I delve too far into the subject, though, I find it necessary to provide some personal context.  If there has been any family as dedicated to serving this country of ours than my own has been over the past 3 generations, I would gladly meet them.  I would happily shake their hand, and listen eagerly to their stories, because a devotion like that to an assumed duty to a man-made construct such as a “country,” let alone a “United States” of such a diverse land and diverse people is something that should be celebrated.  People willing to put their everything on the line for millions of strangers, and the man next to them in combat deserve our respect and admiration.  A family commitment to answering  the call of this country is a commitment I proudly honored.  It’s has become a tradition for Chapman men, at this point. 

My Grandpa Chapman, along with his brothers, were three of the thousands of young men to clog military recruiting and deployment stations in the direct aftermath of the Attack on Pearle Harbor in December 1941.  Though I never heard him say much about his time in the Pacific Theatre aboard the USS Massachusetts, I always knew that he raised his six children, along with Grandmother, to feel a sense of duty to this land.  A duty that four of his five sons would hear calling in their youth, and a calling that another five of his grandsons would hear two generations later.

One of the biggest honors of my life was being the first recruit to take my oath of enlistment at the Kansas City Military Entrance Processing Station on September 12, 2001.  I was supposed to have taken my oath after my career counseling and physical check out the day before, but the entire world changed for every American on that day. 

Like my Grandfather nearly sixty years before, I was one of the first to pledge my life to defending this country after an attack on its people.  For all the dumb shit I did prior, I felt like I was finally living up to my family name.  That feeling never left me.  I believe my family to be one of the best collections of men and women with honor that is walking this planet today.  I have taken at least one valuable lesson from each of you.  I am forever grateful to share the name Chapman with you, and I love you all more than I’ll ever be able to articulate.

To my cousins Curtis, Brian, Shane, and Josh, who joined me in serving this country, I will never be more grateful for anything in this world than to call you my family.  To my Uncles Dave, Mike, Steve, Mark, and Jerry, your service obviously had an impact upon your sons and nephews, and it has shown in each of our accomplishments both in and out of the military.  A family like ours deserves to be celebrated and admired.  I spend each day in awe of the standard Grandpa set, and each of you upheld, to call yourself a Chapman man.  The debt that I owe this name alone will be one that I can never repay. 

When it comes to feelings such as pride, my family almost seems like it has the right to be “proud” of what, collectively, we’ve done for the United States of America.  The only thing is, my Grandpa never seemed all that proud.  He wore the name “American” like it was a standard to achieve, just as so many of his generation did.  He loved his country, and voluntarily served at her mercy when she was attacked, but “pride” never seemed like his modus operandi.  Lord knows, the morals he impressed upon his children weren’t “proud” morals.  If they had been proud, I doubt the respect for service in the military would have trickled down to my generation born in the 70’s and 80’s.

To him, and so many other members of his generation, being an American was great, but it carried a responsibility with it.  This generation grew up during a “Great Depression,” then won “The Great War.”  They understood sacrifice for the greater good, because many of them had seen the ultimate sacrifice paid by the best friends they had ever known.  Being an American entitled you to nothing but what you could do based on your own abilities, and it also meant that you would work to achieve the best you could with those abilities.  This generation not only built the greatest economy this world had ever seen, but the manufacturing and agricultural infrastructure to support it.  They built a country that resembled them and their values. 

I forgive them for being proud of what they had done, because what they had done was worthy of a step back to admire.  It was a truly unique accomplishment in human history to see a country full of people who had been at their worst in over a century, rise to build this sort of utopia after returning from winning the greatest war the world had ever seen. 

Their justified pride on what they had collectively been able to accomplish, though, had negative repercussions as it trickled into the psyche of subsequent generations.  While I understand a generational desire to shield your children from the horrors you have witnessed, first-hand.  My Grandfather's generation begat a new generation who began to feel entitled to a certain standard of living.  

This was the generation that "tuned in, turned on, and dropped out."  They questioned their Government, and righted some wrongs along the way.  They wanted America to take better care of Americans, the unfortunate consequence, though was that Americans began to expect to be taken care of.  Having been born here entitled you to a higher standard of living than anywhere else, so they thought, because America took care of Americans.

We, literally, have millions of people in this country today who celebrate and are proud of simply having been born here.  I, like them, was fortunate enough to have been born on American soil.  Unlike them, I don’t view that as the most important part of my life.  I see things as they are, and, while I feel fortunate to have been born into a developed economy that has provided me comfort and convenience that would be envied in myriad places on this rock, I won’t ever say I’m “proud” to have been born here.

Where you’re born and to whom, logically speaking, isn’t a personal accomplishment.  You’re basically yanked from your mother’s womb, one way or the other, and you’re, at best, an unwilling participant.  Pride in being born in a particular place is similar to pride in breathing in New York City or any other place.  They are survival of the species requirements, not personal accomplishments.

Maybe I’m different, but I only usually take pride in things I have accomplished since being born.  I’m proud to have earned my high school diploma, Associates Degree, and Bachelors Degree (Magna Cum Laude, in case you missed it.)  I’m proud to have spent four years of my life serving in the United States Air Force.  I don’t know that I’m proud of having met and married a beautiful, smart, and amazing woman, who helped make me the father of an amazing little boy, but they serve as the basis for my happiness.  

Naturalized citizens can be proud of becoming an American, because it's actually the completion of a process.  It's a process that includes a test on American History and Government that I'd wager 70% of the people born here would fail.  Maybe more, as I don't see the discourse I should expect from such an educated society either via social media or face-to-face interaction.

Most of all, I’m grateful to have been born into a family that still loves me unconditionally, and to have been born in a country that helped provide me with the education and opportunity to become the man I have become.  I’m grateful that my son was born a Chapman, in the United States of America, as well.  I wasn't raised to be proud of such things, though.  Throughout my life I have had to earn the right to call myself everything from a Graduate, to an Airman, to Husband and Father, to even legally calling myself Jake D. Chapman.  Maybe it's the caliber of people to which I was exposed that lead to me believe being an American involved more than the citizenship I received from having been born here.

To me, pride always seemed like a fat and lazy justification to rest on past accomplishments.  It’s even worse if you’re proud of things you didn’t personally do.  Pride and nationalism seem to go hand-in-hand, and it has left us with nearly two generations talking about how “we” bailed out the French in the 1940’s (with apologies to Doug Stanhope, I might come close to “stealing” your material.  It’s not an intentional attempt to pass off your intellectual property as my own.  It’s more and admission that your bit on nationalism was spot-the-fuck-on, and has had a large impact on my thinking on this topic.  In fact, I’m just going to post the youtube video, so I don’t risk fucking up your words.)

Resting on the accomplishments of those who came before you it lazy.  It reeks of some sense of entitlement to standing within this world for having done nothing.  Previous generations viewed being an American as pursuing progress, either of the mind or through invention.  Many of the most significant scientific advances of the 20th century occurred on American soil.  Not all those advances were positive, though.  Without the telephone and the light bulb, we never would have gotten to the transistor radio or the personal computer.  We also wouldn't have invented the atomic bomb, let alone deployed it.  For every great accomplishment made in this country's history there is likely an equal and opposite shame.  

Our country is a beautiful place.  There are two coasts that provide breath taking views, so long as the chubby people stay out of the speedos, myself included.  Add to that majestic mountains providing fertile valleys for any number crops to be raised, join with those some geographic wonders like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone and you have a landscape that could inspire the worst poet or painter in history.  It would be easy to mistake this natural beauty as only confined to this one place.  Beauty, though, is a fickle and subjective standard.  Desert sunsets are some of the most beautiful events I've ever witnessed.  I'm not sure if it's the aesthetic beauty of the colors as the sun dips behind the mountains west of Phoenix, or the joy in knowing that the sun is down and at least it won't get any hotter.

My point is, while America offers some prime cuts of real estate over varying landscapes, it doesn't make the land itself intrinsically better than any other land.  If the land is just land, then inhabiting that land doesn't make you better or worse than anyone inhabiting different land.  Personal experience has taught me that the meteorological and geographic differences between Phoenix, AZ and Baghdad, Iraq are minimal.  It's WHO inhabits the land that determines the value.

Though it boggles my mind, I have received SPAM political emails from my dad (who sends them just to get me riled up, usually) and others, along with read facebook posts pointing out the border security policies of places like Afghanistan, North Korea, and Iran and comparing them, unfavorably to ours.  Do people actually think about shit this before they post it?  First, using the policies of North Korea, Afghanistan, or Iran as some sort of measuring stick for society is setting the bar on the ground, jumping over it, and calling yourself a high jumper.  In whose right mind are any policies enacted by fundamentalist religious nuts and just plain bat shit crazy people policies that should be admired?  Secondly, those policies are easy to enforce because NO ONE WANTS TO GO TO North Korea, Afghanistan, or Iran.  I think the policies exist more to keep people there than to deter the massive amounts of party people just dying to live under strict Sharia Law or the whim of a fat kid.  

I believe securing our borders is important for national security, since there are  well financed private armies called drug cartels wreaking havoc in every border town from Laredo to San Diego.  However, I can't find it in me to hate people who risk everything to get to this country and try to make a better life for themselves.  The vast majority of the illegal immigrants in this country work hard doing jobs most Americans view as beneath them.  Here in Arizona they have made efforts to curb the amount of "day laborers" that congregate at places like the Home Depot and Lowe's looking for a chance to earn some money, but they rarely hassle the guy at the freeway on-ramp begging for a hand out because he holding a sign with your hand out is much easier than landscaping.  Honestly, on some level, I think this nation would be better off if completely inhabited by illegals.  We wouldn't have to Occupy Wall Street demanding good jobs for Liberal Arts Majors.  We'd only be paid in cash, and we'd only pay for things in cash.  Wall Street wouldn't exist, because no one would invest.  Problem solved.

This country has a great history full of both accomplishments and abominations.  Most of what passes for our political commentators these days tend to only focus on the accomplishments, though.  The fact that this nation, in 80 years went from fighting each other to fighting, and winning two "wars to end all wars" is unprecedented in recorded human history.  However the accomplishments of the latter don't erase the folly in the former.  The one thing about this country that has stood out as admirable was the effort to correct the societal flaws in what we were in the beginning.  We began as almost an aristocracy, where only white, land owning men were permitted to function within the republic.  Now, every color and flavor American citizen can vote, but the majority doesn't.  The right to participate in how you're governed is a fundamental human right, but it's also a responsibility that too many of us ignore.  I will admit that I, too, have become jaded to the political process, but the reason the process is broken is that we as a society stopped holding our leaders accountable for their actions.  We stopped informing ourselves on issues, and started identifying ourselves by political philosophies we don't understand.  In short, we stopped caring about each other and about being a part of a larger entity.  The same entity of which we we're supposedly proud to be a part.

Make no mistake about it, those that came before us and kicked all the ass we love to talk about kicking weren't proud to be Americans.  They were grateful to be Americans, and it showed in their pursuit of something better than what they already were.  They viewed being an American as something you earned, and that what you did yesterday didn't have to determine what you do tomorrow.  What's more, the publicly acknowledged mistakes and changed things for the better.

Proud societies become complacent, happy to get fat off other's innovations, and only seek to be entertained.  They're petulant, and view simple things like serving food or emptying garbage as "beneath them."  They become "educated" but stupid, because the education stops being about enlightenment and becomes about a higher status in the ordered community.  "My degree should guarantee me mid management at a Fortune 500 corporation, no way will I mop the floors at the high school to pay my bills.  I'd rather go on welfare."

We have become the proudest generation of Americans with the least understanding of the responsibility of citizenship in the history of this country, all while accomplishing less and consuming more.  The cost of this attitude is evident on nearly every economic indicator for this country, and on the ability of this society to educate their children.  We've started re-hashing the Scopes Monkey Trial nearly a century later because I suppose the evidence supporting Darwin's "theory" in our own bodies (wanna see my coccyx?) to think that maybe Genesis was three minstrels trying to explain the inexplicable.  If the stories in Genesis didn't exist and somebody tried to tell you that was exactly how humanity began over beers and during commercials at your local Hooters, would you not laugh your ass off when he went to take a leak?

We are a dying empire because of our pride in ourselves and our past.  Pride focuses on the past.  Gratitude focuses on future repayment while appreciating the past.  I know "grateful" is one too many syllables to fit into Lee Greenwood's only hit, but just imagine the things we could accomplish together if we were once again grateful Americans instead of proud ones...