Fresh Air and Common Sense

The text below is a speech I delivered for the Little Fort Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. 

Days You Will Always Remember, Things You Should Never Forget

by: Jim Smith

 

Madam Regent, Ladies of the Daughters of the American Revolution,
and guests, I wish to thank you for this opportunity to visit with you once
again.  I am humbled by the invitation,
and encouraged for the future of or country by your acts of service.

 

Today is December 7, 2013. 
In 1941, seventy-two years ago, a great historical event took
place.  A Japanese attack force
consisting of six aircraft carriers, two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one
light cruiser, nine destroyers, eight tankers, twenty-three fleet submarines,
five midget submarines and 414 aircraft arrived in the waters around Pearl
Harbor.  Upon the receipt of a coded
message saying “climb mount Nitaka,” they launched a devastating
attack which was intended to cripple the US Pacific Fleet.

Six ships and one hundred eighty-eight aircraft were destroyed,
another thirteen ships and one hundred fifty-nine aircraft were damaged.  Just over two thousand four hundred Americans
died, and another twelve hundred forty-seven were injured.  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed
a joint session of Congress where he asked Congress for a declaration of war
against the Empire of Japan.  He
described December seventh nineteen forty-one as a date that will live in
infamy, and it has.  It resides in our
history books as a catalyst for the United States to mobilize a war effort on a
scale that had previously not been seen in modern history.

I wasn’t around for that event, by the way.  Actually, many of us in this room
weren’t.  The generation that was witness
to those events is slowly coming to an end. 
The world is losing a great generation of people who saw their way
through adversity and overcame it.  The
controversy over the World War II Memorial in Washington DC is an example of
the ages old question: what, and how should we as a nation commemorate?

Lets try a little experiment, shall we?  I will name a date, and lets see how many of
these dates we can collectively remember.

 

October 12, 1492 – Christopher Columbus lands in the Bahamas.

August 1619 – A Dutch ship arrives in Jamestown and delivers the
first slaves to the new world.

December 16, 1773 – Boston Tea Party

July 4, 1776 – The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the
Continental Congress.

April 19, 1775 – The battles at Lexington and Concord, the
official start of the Revolutionary War.

October 19, 1781 – The British surrender at Yorktown, ending the
Revolutionary War.

September 17, 1787 – The Constitution is adopted and sent to the
states for ratification.

April 1789 – George Washington becomes the first President of the
United States of America.

 

Lets skip ahead, shall we? 
We already know December 7, 1941, so try this:

 

August 6, 1945 – Atomic Bomb dropped on Hiroshima

May 17, 1954 – Brown v. Board of Education is decided by the
Supreme Court

Nov 22, 1963 – Assassination of President John F Kennedy

August 8, 1964 – Resignation of President Richard Nixon

Nov 8, 1980 – Election of President Ronald Reagan

Nov 4, 2008 – Election of President Barack Obama

Now of these how, many have days of remembrance associated with
them.  And to be honest, how many really
should have a day of remembrance?  Even
less get holidays.  Each of us has our
own list of days of remembrance.  Weddings, births of children, even deaths all
become a part of our personal calendar of important days.  Originally, this address was going to be
about the importance of those days in our lives, but something that occurred
recently made me re-think that, and I ended up re-writing this presentation and
taking it in a whole different direction.

A couple weeks ago, we had an event in Milwaukee called the
Holiday Folk Fair.  During this event,
people from diverse cultures come together, prepare traditional foods, sell
traditional crafts, and more importantly, they gather to learn about one
another.  Our school sent a group of
international students to this event. 
This event happened to coincide with the anniversary of the
assassination of John F Kennedy.  One of
our exchange students from Africa noticed the flags flying at half-mast and
asked why.  The teacher with the group
explained why, and the student asked a very thoughtful question.  He asked if we did the same thing for the day
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.  This
prompted that teacher to ask me why we didn’t, and I honestly had to answer that I
had no idea.

’’s
Legacy one of hope or tragedy?  Would
Kennedy be proud of what his party and country have become?  Would the Democratic Party of 2013 even
nominate John F. Kennedy?  OK, so it begs
several questions.^tht do this every year.  It was just that it was the 50We don
anniversary.  But it begs a question: is
there a memorial planned for Kennedy beyond the eternal flame at
Arlington?  Will there ever be a time
when EVERYBODY believes that the assassination was the work of a Lone
Gunman?  Is Kennedy

’t want us to look at this through the
lens of the meaning of life, but the meaning of MY life.We are not here to answer those questions, but to ask one?  Who are we? 
Why are we here?  I am not talking
about the human experience, but rather individually.  I don

Today, I am here as a guest speaker to a wonderful civic
organization with strong roots in American History.  The Daughters of the American Revolution is
dedicated to the principles of patriotism, and preserving the history of the
United States through the inheritors of the families that were there.  They seek to preserve that history for future
generations which may lack that direct familial connection shared by the women
of DAR.

’t trade it for anything.  Well, almost anything.  There are very few things I would rather
do.  I wouldn’’I am, as most of you know, a Civics Teacher.  I wouldnt mind
being President.  I wouldnt
mind leading the first mission to establish a colony on the moon or even
Mars.  Granted, the latter would probably
be a one-way trip, but it would be worth it and totally awesome.

All of that being said, I know who and what I am in the larger
sense, but I need to remember who and what I am in the smaller sense in a day
by day basis too.  Each day, I need to
ask myself who and what I am.  In each
situation, on each day, while who and what I am doesn’t
change in a macro scale, it does change in small ways based on the situation in
which I find myself.

^thFor instance, once class period each day, I am not a Civics
Teacher, but rather a Computer Teacher. 
Each day I teach a group of 8 graders the basics of
computing.  Who and what I am changes.

’s take a look at ourselves.So, starting with the one largest, biggest scope of who and what
we are, let

 

’’First we are humans.  We
are at the top of the food chain, given dominion of the Earth and everything on
it.  We are all Godt take this wonderful gift for granted.s
special creation.  While this is a great
position to have, it also bears a great responsibility.  When Adam and Eve were placed in the garden,
they were to tend and keep it.  While we
are given the Earth and everything on it for our good and our use, we ought not
to waste it.  We should take care that we
don

Secondly, we are citizens of the United States of America.  This places us in a unique position among the
people of the world.  The United States
is the first among the modern nations of the world.  We are the first to have a country where we
have the freedom and self determination to choose our path in life. There is
nothing that cannot be achieved for the person willing to work hard for it.

’t succeed because they are not willing
to work for it.  Thomas Edison famously
said that a lot of people fail to recognize opportunity because it is dressed
in overalls and looks a lot like work. 
Preach on, Tom.Over the past 226 years, the United States has drawn literally
millions of immigrants to its shores. 
All of this is based on our reputation as a land of freedom and
opportunity.  So many young people born
in the United States today don

Thirdly, you are members of a wonderful civic organization, the
National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.  This means that you have a lineage that goes
back to a person who aided in achieving American independence.  Be it by signing the Declaration of
Independence, fighting in the Revolutionary War, pushing boxes at the Boston
Tea Party, or others who served during the crucial days leading up to our
independence, each of your ancestors was a part of the greatest moment of
recorded history (well, for our point of view anyways.  I have some British friends who would contest
that).

 

As a member of DAR, you take part in community serve projects to
support the education of our children, and to advance the cause of patriotism
in the United States.  DAR members
contribute more than a quarter of a million hours of volunteer service to
assist veterans.  The Daughters of the
American Revolution take a leading role in preserving the history of the United
States by helping to preserve and protect local and national landmarks across
the country.  The DAR museum conserves
thousands of important historical objects, one of the most important such collections
in America.

“……”It is a huge responsibility to be part of such an organization.  One of the founders of the Daughters of the
American Revolution stated it like this: [and] the preservation of documents
and relics , and the records of the individual services of soldiers and
patriots.[they] resolved to use their minds,
their hearts, and their means to perpetuate the memory of the spirit of the men
and women who achieved American Independence; to encourage patriotism, and
engender the spirit of Americanism; to teach patriotism by erecting monuments
and protecting historical spots;

’s who.  We remember certain days. 
Publishers even mark them in the calendars before we purchase them on
the assumption that we will want to remember certain dates. But who remember
the names, the actions and the legacy of the men and women who won us our
freedom?  A freedom now that has been
twisted and redefined into something the founders would never recognize?  The Daughters of the American Revolution
does, that

 

 

So I ask you: Who are you? Why are you here?  Are you in DAR simply because it was expected
of you?  Are you here simply because this
is your circle of friends, and you know no other?  Or, are you here because the blood of the
founders flows in your veins, a heart of freedom beats in your chest, and a
life of true liberty is your goal?  If
you have lost that vision of what DAR means to you, I encourage you to look
deep within yourself, and to find that spark of freedom, and to fan it into a
flame of liberty, burning bright.

Thank you.