A little while after September 11, a backlash began across the land to the World Trade Center observation platform that was installed in New York. A number of words have been used to describe the people who would go there to observe the destruction wrought upon this nation by fanatics and zealots. “Morbid” and “rubbernecker” were used to a great extent. I heard a show on National Public Radio debating the very subject. Someone was asked why did you go, and why in the world would anyone take a child?

Well, I haven’t been. I’m still in South Carolina thankful I knew no one there. Given the opportunity, would I have gone? Would I have taken my children, at that time a 13-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son?

Absolutely.

Americans know nearly nothing of their history, of their home, their nation, the World. It has been a shame that we know so little until we have to fight there. Who knew where Kuwait was in 1991? Viet Nam in 1961? Or Korea in 1951? Or anything outside of their home town in 1941? (Anyone see a pattern here?) And today, how many of our children have even a clue where any of those places are? How many of us know? Well, that ignorance is what allows our government to make policy and to do things that may well be best for this nation, but we know nothing of. We live blissfully in our ignorance. BAM! Then we spend countless years trying to figure out WHY “it” happened. My children need to see history, and the consequences of not knowing history, and to understand the absolute truth that he who does not know history is doomed to repeat it. Remember Pearl Harbor? Now remember the World Trade Center.

Americans have also forgotten what service and responsibility to one’s nation is all about. I’ve become sick to my stomach over all the hand wringing and pledges to “contribute” and to “serve” the nation. People went out after 9-11, gave a pint of blood and believed that they served. Well, on Monday, December 8, 1941, when people understood what service was, military recruiting stations were deluged with volunteers. It took days, and in many cases people having to get back in line day-after-day, in order to enlist. Men, and later women, raised their hands and took an oath that would lead many of them to death. All for the sake of their homeland and the defense of their families. They were rich and poor, black, white, red, yellow, brown, large and small, Northerner and Southerner, Easterner and Westerner, Americans all. A few even tried to disguise handicaps in order to enlist! Most of those were forced to go back home.

Even Jehovah’s Witnesses, devout pacifists that they are and were, volunteered in droves and served as medics and as ambulance drivers, mny dying in combat to serve their nation and fellow man. All these Americans understood the meaning of service.

Today, it is chic to avoid true service to the nation. I'm sorry, but giving a pint of blood and serving in office with all its percs is not true service. And neither is "bravely" running away to a foreign nation to avoid it.

Thank you 60's generation for that lie.

So, I wish I could have taken my children to the WTC. I would let them know that even if you are a coward, or believe you’re too important, or that you are just too good to serve, or that you’re just too wealthy, or too good looking, or too talented, or too whatever - you can still die for your country, even if you don’t intend to put yourself in harms way! And in the last moments you’ll wonder why? It is better to serve and defend your nation through sacrifice and live twenty years knowing that you are doing what is noble and honorable. I don’t want to die a coward’s death at 100. Its as simple as that.

What about me? I served nine years in the Army, away from my family for as long as twelve months. I’m now a National Guardsman. I volunteered for six months in Kuwait, keeping Iraq at bay. Then, I went to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom III for fifteen months. My brother served on the DMZ in Korea on active duty, and in Iraq with the South Carolina Army National Guard during the invasion (Operation Iraqi Freedom I) and is still serving in the Reserves. My father served in Vietnam, TWICE, and died of cancer due to exposure to nuclear testing in New Mexico and Nevada. And no, we won’t sue. My MOTHER served two years as a WAC (Womens Army Corps), and my grandfather served in North Africa, Sicily and Europe in World War Two. We know service and our family is proud to have defended you and this nation. Give my mom a hug and thank her if you see her. She gets too little praise for performing her duty.

If you’ve served, thank you and may God bless you. And if you’ve never served, ask yourself this, “Is the reason that any ONE of the American fighting men and women who have died not here because they were serving in my place?”

Sleep well.