Patriotism Lost

My 30-year high school reunion notice arrived by email a few weeks ago, setting off a wave of nostalgia. Not just about high school and the “good old days”, but about our country. And I can’t help but wonder how we got here.

One of my most vivid memories of my teenage years was the trip to Washington, D.C. the summer before my senior year with a choir. Over one hundred of us, dressed in red, white & blue. It was 1976 and we celebrated the Bicentennial in style. We knew every patriotic song and sang them everywhere we could, including on stage with the President of the United States, Gerald R. Ford, and on national television at halftime of a college football all-star game.

Today my own son is entering his junior year in high school and I wonder if he and his buddies would even recognize songs like “This is My Country” or “This Land is Your Land.” They certainly would never consider participating in a choir that was singing such corny stuff. They don’t seem to view the country the same way we did in the seventies.

Some tell me that’s because they have come of age during the era of George W. Bush, when it appears our government, and therefore our nation, deserves no respect. I don’t buy that. Now I’m no fan of George W. Bush, I have voted against him five times. Twice for President, twice for Governor, and in the first vote I ever cast in 1978 I voted against him for Congress.

But how could they possibly be more jaded about our political leaders than we were in high school. We were too young to be personally affected by Vietnam, but we grew up watching Water Cronkite tell us the daily “body count.” Then came Watergate. Richard Nixon became the only president ever to resign his office about four weeks before the start of our sophomore year. But two years later we’re singing patriotic songs on the steps of the Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial and Mount Vernon.

Maybe it is our fault. I am sure that we have not set the example of patriotism that our parents did. Our parents were formed by World War II, maybe the same way we were formed by Vietnam. There is a glaring difference. They saw the war of their childhood for what it was, the battle between good and evil. We didn’t see the war of our childhood in the same light. It became the battle between our government and our citizens, or at least between the government and the nation’s youth. The protesters were eight to twenty years older than us, but we watched them closely. We were too young to be participants, but we were greatly affected.

So what did we pass on to our children, who according to the website the reunion committee has posted, range in age from 29 to 10? Clearly not patriotism. Oh, they’ll root for the US in the Olympics or the World Cup, but not with the passion we cheered the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980. And sing the songs? Not a chance. They know most of the words to the “Star Spangled Banner” and “God Bless America”, but they are not going to be singing them anywhere. I am disappointed in that, saddened. But I am really concerned about what our grandchildren may wind up thinking of their country.

If our children have grown up jaded and non-patriotic because of their parent’s remembrances of Vietnam, what will the next generation be like? What will the children of kids raised watching the war in Iraq be taught about our country? It won’t be patriotism I’m pretty sure. Will it be distrust? Or worse, indifference? I have earned my living most of my adult life in the political arena. I have known many politicians, both good and bad. I believe in our system of government and I am convinced it is the greatest ever tired, but I am worried.

A friend of mind who has a Ph.D. in history told me about a theory that most generations are more like their grandparents than their parents. They are more likely to hold the beliefs and participate in the activities of their grandparent’s generation. But they have to be taught about the good things of the country, and I am concerned about who is going to teach them that. I’m not talking about their formal education. Their teachers and their textbooks are only a part of their education. And in terms of patriotism, I would argue, only a small part. It will be what their parents think and say about the country that has an impact on them. And I am concerned about what my son and his friends will think and say.

I’m going home for the reunion. Home to the place George H.W. Bush called the barometer of the country, Lubbock, Texas. We’ll have a great time. We’ll tell old stories. We’ll show pictures of kids and grandkids. We’ll give each other a hard time about getting fat, bald & gray. Mostly we’ll hug and laugh. Some of us will even talk about that choir trip to D.C.

But we won’t sing any patriotic songs. And I wonder if anyone ever will again.