I had planned to use this space to follow up on my last post, but you'll have to bear with me for a while, because I've found something I need to share with you.

I've just finished reading the book Cobra II, by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor; it's a well-researched, well-written, exciting, and heartbreaking book about the invasion and occupation of Iraq. There's a passage near the end of the book that is worth quoting to you and commenting on. Chief Warrant Officer Dave Williams was one of a group of American POWs being held by the Iraqis in a house in Samarra, and he told the authors of the book that...

"The Iraqis had a hard time understanding something (about their American prisoners). Shoshonna is Panamanian, Edgar is Hispanic, Joe is Philippine, and Patrick is from Kansas. The Iraqis could not conceive how we could all have been in the same army and not fight one another. One Iraqi said to me, 'You no fighting each other? Why?'"

Why, indeed?

In my post of July 25th, I wrote about the observation in the book Revolutionary Characters that the United States is a country founded on the basis of a set of beliefs, rather than on a common ethnicity, religion, or culture. Because of that, we have managed to avoid the kind of sectarian violence that plagues much of the rest of the world, and have created a society which welcomes people of every race, creed, religion, and color with the opportunity to cooperate in building a shared dream of freedom and prosperity. Perfect? Of course not. But how many other countries have an enormous problem with people frantically trying to get in? When last I looked, Saudi Arabia, China, Sudan, and most other countries didn't have much of a problem securing their borders against hordes of people trying to break in.

For all of our problems, we have built a nation that is the envy of the world...and we have done it by working together according to shared ideals expressed by a group of visionary people more than 225 years ago. Much of the rest of the world may shout, "Yankee, go home!", but the next few words are usually, "...and take me with you!"

Be thankful for the country in which you live. I am.

In the next post, I'll continue my discussion about how we as a nation present ourselves to a skeptical world. Until then, have a good day.

Bilbo