Dave Reed

Lately, I feel like all I'm doing is trying to remind Americans who they are. And how little of what we’re going through is actually new. I see the same defeatist comments every time I post a historical example: “We can’t do that anymore.” “We’re too soft now.” “Those days are gone.” It's almost hilarious, like some of you genuinely believe we haven’t always been called weak. Soft. Decadent. A nation of mongrels. Of playboys. Of amateurs. Go read what our enemies have said about us for 250 years. The insults don’t change. What they never understood, and what many of us have forgotten, is that we’ve always been doubted. And we’ve always answered with fury. Take Colonel Lewis Millett in Korea. He was so fed up with hearing the same tired slanders from the Chinese that Americans wouldn’t fight up close, that we had no stomach for sacrifice, that he ordered a bayonet charge uphill into machine guns. No cover. Just raw audacity. He said: “There comes a time when you have to grab your rifle and go kill the enemy.” I remember hearing that story as a young Soldier and thinking it was inspiring. But I didn’t understand it. I do now. It wasn’t about tactics. It was a defiant reminder.... to his men and to his nation.... of what Americans are made of. In WWII, the Japanese said we were too mongrelized to fight a real war. Then came Midway, and our pilots flew into certain death just to buy seconds, SECONDS, to hit Japanese carriers. The enemy was stunned. They revered the samurai ideal, and even they were awestruck by the self-sacrifice of American aviators. Or take the Battle off Samar. A ragtag group of destroyers, escort carriers, and reservists (Taffy 3) turned to face a force that wildly outmatched them. And they didn’t run. They charged into the abyss, launching torpedoes and smoke and prayers at battleships far larger and more powerful. They horrified the descendants of samurai, again. That’s just off the top of my head this morning. Americans are different. We fight each other all day long, and yet somehow, when it really matters, we become the most formidable, unpredictable force on the planet. Foreign adversaries don’t get it. Hell, sometimes we don’t get it. But it’s real. How are you going to beat a nation that spars with itself every single f*****g day? I hope I don’t have to order a bayonet charge someday just to prove this to you. Maybe words and a little history will do. But don’t say this is new. And don’t say we’ve lost it. We are just... different. And it's time to remember that. We've got 250 years of evidence here. ***Oh, and fighting in the Pacific seems to bring out some unique kind of demon in us. I'm just here giving fair warning.***