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"Communist Pig,"
oc
"If
you don't like
it, why don't you get out?"
Where went our patriotism? Did
something kill it? Did it just gradually
die? Patriotism is, after all, a deep,
prideful !ove of one's father country, a
thankful apprecíation for tbe freedoms
and liberties bought at such a dear cost
by the tens of thousands who paid the
most horrible of prices. Patriotism is
!ove of country. And it's love
FOR
coun–
try, too. But like the !ove within a
tight-knit
famity,
a completely patriotic
American can become very, very angry
at trends within his country. Why is it
parents, who dearly love their children,
can become angry when they witness the
child making a decision they know will
harm him?
Patriotism can never be blind flag–
waving, a flag-shrouded refusal to admit
family clifficulties, a blind determination
to remain studiously ignorant of decp
family sicknesses.
Today, youthful Americans chicle the
super-patriotic attempts to deny prob–
lems with insistent flag-waving by liter–
ally
dressing
in the flag. Red, white and
blue sells more than any other color
combination at
the
moment. Ski clothes,
jeans, shirts, ponchos, hats - are fes–
tooned with red and white stripes, with
blue fields and white stars. Thousands
of window stickers appear with the so–
called hippie "peace" symbol (in reality
an ancient, pagan Egyptian sex symbol)
superimposed over a portion of the
American flag. And all this, of course,
is a put-on.
But there are
reasom
for a decline in
patriotism. There are
1·easom
for our
spiritual poverty, our moral sickness.
Our Recent Wars
To understand what's been happen–
ing to us, you need to look back as far
as 1950, and Korea. We lost in Korea.
Since then, we have lived through the
Gary Powers incident, the Bay of Pigs,
the Hungarian revolution, the Pueblo,
the years and years of the Berlín Wall,
and a decade of horror abroad and fren·
zied protest at home over the futility of
war in Vietnam.
Remember the days when Jeaders
were applauded?
It
was just barely
before Korea, you'll recall. Remember
Ambossodor Collogo Photos
A NATION WITHOUT UNITED PURPOSE -
As never before, Americans
are unsure of their country, the future, their reason for being.
the times when Americans remembered
their own past history with pride?
You'll recall it was just before Korea.
But since then, we've lived through
the assassinations of a President and his
brother, of Medgar Evers and Dr. Mar–
tia Luther King. We've seen dozens of
American
cities
aflame, with tens of
thousands of youthful soldiers and
national guardsmen confronting their
own peers with loaded rifles and bayo–
nets. Since Korea, we've seen America's
cities become steeping, seething centers
of great turmoil and crime. America's
campuses have become hot spots for riot,
murder, drug abuse, and centers for the
fomenting of violent revolution. Since
Korea, we've seen increased black mili–
tancy along with a rise in the Ku Klux
Klan, the Minutemen, and other ultra–
militant or paramilitary groups. We've
also heard of the SDS aod the Weath–
ermen, along with a grisly record of
more than 500 bombings in 1970 alone.
We've seen pictures of burning
builclings, and firemen fighting fircs
raging in their own trucks. We've seen
pictures of the many young American
policemen shot down in the daily com–
bat in which they engage - and the
battlefield is America and its cities.
We've seen it all, and it has all taken
its toll on us.
Since Korea, America has not had a
victory. Her sons have fought in far
cornees of the world in undeclared wars
for limited political objectives, led by
civilians. The one bright moment in a
tiresome series of humiliating defeats,
stalemates and docile subservience to
piracy was the Cuban Missile Crisis.
But even this was short-lived.
We lost in Korea. We're losing tn
Vietnam.
The Korean Lesson
Don't write history unless you wish
succeeding generations to learn from it.
Oon't read history unless you wish to
learn from it. America wrote history in
Korea - in the blood of her sons, hus–
bands, and fathers. But she failed to
read that lesson. After the tens of thou–
sands of rotting corpses were buried, or
left to decay on the rugged, icy slopes
of Korea, after a major war had
sapped American military and economic
strength, the world had learned only
one significant lesson: that the United
States'
WILL
could be challenged, that
the
PRIDE
in her powcr was ftagging,