It's Easy For Me

I was born four weeks before 1959 in a U.S. military hospital in Germany. From that I personally have two birth certificates. One is a U.S. State Department certificate of “Birth of a U.S. Citizen Overseas.” The other is a German Geburtserkunde. Simply, both state that I was born at a certain place and time of specific parents. They both agree on those items. The difference is the language.

My wife was born a few months later in the American South. Her parents received a birth certificate that she can obtain official copies of through the county in which she was born.

When my children were born, each one in a different state of the Union, my wife and I received two birth certificates. One was an unofficial hospital certificate and the other was the official certificate from the states of their birth. We keep the originals in a safe deposit box at our bank, and we have copies that stay at our home and in the hands of our now-adult children. Interestingly, in the case of both our children the two documents were in full agreement on the date, time and place of their births, and of who the parents are.

In the case of each of these births, the documentation is full and accurate. I can produce these documents in a minimal amount of time, though weekends are problematical. I was required to produce these when I enlisted and throughout my career in the Army in order to prove that I was who I said I was, and that my wife and children were who they were supposed to be.

So, I guess the real question is:

Why can’t my president do the same?