I grew up in America. There are a handful of moments in my life where I teared up as the American flag passed by. The Fourth of July is my favorite holiday. Living in a foreign country, Germany, to be specific, for 18 months made me very grateful for my country. I love America. My Dad said something to me last night during our politics talk: "The thing that hurts me the most is that your children won't grow up with the America I grew up with." He's right. America has changed. The respect isn't there... as much as it was. Hardly at all. Today is September 11. People all over America, most of all in NY, are reflecting on a day that brought all those who live in America, not just "Americans," together. Close. One. Unified. Why is it that a national tragedy has to happen in order to bring unity to a nation? I am grateful for my country. I love America. I support the troops and am grateful for their service in protecting our country. I support and love my country.
The blog, Daily Derbi, has some great insight as well.
Great post Ashley. I agree that most of what America used to represent is now lost and it's sad. You might also check out a little political diddy I wrote the other day too: http://dailyderbi.com/hate-the-office-not-the-playa/
ReplyDeleteAsh- Your blog is fun to read. I want to join the discussion. Don't you think the respect that existed in our parents time was the after effects of numerous political and world events? In fact, if anything our parents had MORE events to motivate their patriotism. Think the space race, WWI and WWII veteran parents, Vietnam, the Kennedy assassination, MLK assassination, Watergate, and the hippy movement. These were all big political events...which is some way or another caused people to either be patriotic or simply get involved in politics and think about it.
ReplyDeleteSo for us we've had 9/11, the war in Iraq, and a few other incidents. I don't think it's a sign of a less appreciative generation that it took 9/11 to wake us up...our parents had tons of their own wake up calls.
It's sad that it takes a war or an attack to rally our respect and patriotism, but we know from the scriptures that that's just the pride cycle...it takes something bad for us to realize what we're grateful for. It's nothing new or a sign to me that our generation is worse...only that mankind hasn't changed since Biblical times.
Oh and this is cool. The WTC Visitor site is pretty humbling.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/remembering_september_11th.html
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