Several wars teach tenets of patriotism
Pearl Harbor occurred while I was in kindergarten. A precocious reader, I followed the subsequent war in the Atlanta newspapers and radiocasts. My frequent babysitter, a wise African-American lady, discussed the war with me.
V-mail, the highly censored letters from uncles, cousins and close family friends who had either enlisted or been drafted, began to arrive a year later and were circulated among various households.
The most poignant letter arrived days after we learned of the writer’s death on Iwo Jima. A friend and former co-worker of my Dad’s, he wrote about his anticipation of returning to his family and his job.
In grammar school we had paper, tinfoil and scrap-metal drives. My friends and I would load our red wagons with materials we had solicited from our neighbors, then take the items to a dropoff point at our school’s playground. We always reached our quota goals, for which we were thanked by an American Legionnaire. It affirmed our small part in a massive effort to defeat dangerous enemies.
Newsreels shown at every movie that I attended, save for Saturday double features, brought us up to date with the war on every front. In our games, we assumed the role of soldiers rather than cowboys.
In my West Georgia hometown, we had periodic air-raid practices with required blackouts when sirens sounded. A neighborhood warden called if any light shone from our windows.
A visit to Washington, D.C., in 1943 was an eye-opener. Barrage balloons attached to steel cables floated over the city, supposed to deter any low-level air attacks on the Capitol. At night, crews practiced with searchlights, locking onto airplanes flying overhead. I attended a war bond rally at the Washington Monument where a crashed German Messerschmitt 109 fighter plane was displayed.
Back home, my friends and I were counseled to avoid riding our bicycles in a particular neighborhood where a household had suffered the loss of a son in combat. At school and public events, the flag and the National Anthem had special meaning, reminding us of servicemen and women who were
protecting us.
We celebrated VE Day and VJ Day when the war ended. My relatives returned from service and either resumed work or used the GI Bill for college. Without exception, they deferred my questions about their experiences.
For our generation, patriotism meant honoring people who served and sacrificed on our behalf.
One Sunday morning in 1950, I listened to my Emerson radio to reports of an invasion of South Korea. Once again we were at war. A move by my family to Columbia, S.C., brought us closer to the impact of that war because of the heightened activity at nearby Fort Jackson. A military division paraded down Main Street before deployment in Korea; my cousins were called back to active duty.
In this war there was no clear-cut victory. But we remained patriotic, although our roles as citizens were diminished.
The Vietnam War brought quite different stresses to the nation. Patriotism for many of us was challenged by widespread protests over the war and the military draft.
My military service commenced upon completion of my residency training in medicine in 1968. I addressed the needs of basic trainees, participated in the treatment of sick and wounded air evacuees from Vietnam and saw more clearly than ever the roles that duty, courage and sacrifice play in patriotism.
In my years of medical practice, I was privileged to know former prisoners-of-war and veterans with persistent psychological and physical wounds from military service. They continued my lessons in patriotism.
At this late point in my life, I define patriotism in terms of a continuing commitment to protect and to serve. I stand for the presentation of colors and the National Anthem with my right hand over my heart and sing where possible.
I recognize my country as a work-in-progress to which millions of people have contributed. Many complex issues are yet to be solved. Racial and ethnic prejudice, poverty, people without health insurance, refugees from poverty and civil wars, environmental degradation — all require our serious and sustained attention as patriots.
Memory, honor, commitment and optimism are all bound up in our respectful response to the flag and the anthem.