I still stand when it is sung. From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.....am I nuts or what? Today Tripoli has a new and better meaning. A day to remember in place of anniversaries of American Imperialism. From Yahoo News:
Libyan rebels raced into Tripoli Sunday and met little resistance as Moammar Gadhafi's defenders melted away and his 42-year rule rapidly crumbled. The euphoric fighters celebrated with residents of the capital in Green Square, the symbolic heart of the regime.
I don't know about you, but I have this very strong feeling that we are now on the wrong end of recent history. Those people in Libia were fighting for something all our myths and fairy tales say we won a few hundred years ago. Where did it go? We have potential repressive leaders competing to see who gets to put us in virtual chains. I really get a kind of sick feeling when I find myself hearing the Marine Hymn or saying the pledge. (I skip "under god"). They don't do anything positive for me. Where have I changed? Or has my country changed? Read on below while I ponder this further.
I was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on June 6 1957. It was right after graduation at the Illinois Institute of Technology in my home town of Chicago. I went through college on an NROTC regular scholarship and therefore was a regular officer. Our numbers came in sequence right after Annapolis. I was pretty gung-ho in those days. Maybe I'd be a career officer. That's what they told me I should have done when I resigned my regular commission in 1960 to enter grad school at the University of Chicago. I still had three more years to serve as a reserve officer and since the Marine Corps reserves were so popular I could not even join a unit. They were all full. Instead I carried a set of ten day mobilization orders on a card in my wallet. Upon announcement of mobiliztion I had ten days to report. I spent some anxious days in grad school when the Berlin air lift and the Cuban missle crisis came to be. I made it through and graduated and did my post doc at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. Iwas living there, married and with two kids, paying $10.00 a month for complete health care coverage when JFK was gunned down (He was no Gadhafi) and when the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed almost unanimously (Thank you Senators Morse and Greunning).
I cut my wonderful post doc short. I was mobilizing. My country was at war. No, I was over my military commitment and honorably discharged. I was mobilizing to join the Anti-war and Civil Rights movement. I quickly became a leader and soon was in a position to make more sacrifices for my country. I help Dr. Spock and Resist and others stop the Draft. I committed Civil disobedience on the steps of the Justice Department on National TV when I turned in my Draft Card. I now could be imprisoned for ten years.
There's a lot more I could tell you, but you can see that indeed I have changed. Unfortunately, the country has too. Today I could not possibly get the education I got then, for example. Today a person finishing a post doc in science might have do do a few more if they are lucky enough to get them, because there are so few jobs. I saw generations of well trained PhDs leave science over the years.
So as I celebrate the Libyan liberation of Tripoli I mourn as well. I wish someday we could liberate Washiongtn, D.C. I am 75 now and have little hope of ever seeing it. There is a bitter taste as I write. Just a few years ago I had hope. I chanted "Yes we can!" I believed change was possible. No more.