Joe Berlyak

Thought provoking piece Jack.

There's a lot I want to say in response; most of which I probably shouldn't. Growing up, I believed that those Patriots were everything this video portrays them as...brave, dedicated to liberty, driven by faith. I came of age believing heart and soul in a seamless heritage of moral courage stretching from "that" war (Operation Desert Storm) all the way back to 1776.

Then "my turn" came, and like most all of us here, I raised my hand to promise to defend all of that against any enemy...foreign or domestic.

"Our" war came, and with it, the realization that war is never so cut and dried. Yes, the "big picture" is honestly and pragmatically "just"...but a whole lot of questionable stuff accompanies it. We all know it...some of us try to say it...others of us try to forget it. Somewhere along the way, you look up and figure out that the people pulling the strings are not by necessity acting out of noble motivations.

Have they ever?

For my own part, rather than getting "angry", I got curious. I started looking at history from different perspectives; trying to understand what "changed", or comparatively remained constant over all of those years. What I saw eventually caused me to ask lots of questions; questions that aren't always easy to answer.

I wish I could say that we are the "land of the free and the home of the brave"...I wish even more that I could say that there was a time when we once perfectly were. As I get older, I can only suggest that there certainly was a time when we wanted to be.

Maybe that's as good as it gets.

I have no doubt that if events precipitated gross abuses of the populace, or unvarnished betrayal of the rule of law, that there are those of us who would fight bravely to stop it. If "they", whomever they are, come for us in our towns and homes...certainly, they'll be facing a staunch foe.

But that isn't how freedom dies, is it?

It dies slowly by degrees; in "interpretations" and court cases, and class rooms. No one's ever going to get on TV and shout, "we're ripping up the Constitution, then coming after YOU, Mr. American!" No, they start with all of the "little" moves this video speaks to.

We're not going to stand up to that like they did at Lexington and Concord, or Breed's Hill, or The Cowpens. Neither are we going to see another Gettysburg or Antietam. I think for some of us, as bad as those terrible events were...they are easier to contemplate than the last remaining battlefields we do fight on every day.

Perhaps real bravery and freedom comes from never forgetting and never letting "them" forget that "progress" can go too far, that "compassion" can be corrupted into complacency, and liberty comes with responsibility.