Last night I recieved an interesting letter from my Uncle, who was a Marine in Vietnam and spent over 6 weeks at the peak of the war doing reconnaisance by finding the enemy's heavy artillerary and calling in airstrikes for those locations. At the time, he took the assignment, the life expectancy for such positions was 2 weeks. He made over three times that long without being killed and was eventually recalled from that duty and was later assigned to less perilous positions in the war. The job he accepted for this nation was effectively a death sentence at the time, and yet he took it, and somehow escaped with his life. He made sacrifices for this country that are difficult for me to comprehend, and so you can imagine my surpirse when I recieved this note from him last night in an email - (over the fold)
Tim,
Hope you are well. Your Mom tells me you like Obama. Since I know you are an accomplished writer, and if you’d care to and have a little time, send me two paragraphs making a case for voters to pull the lever for Barack. You can concentrate on his qualities. There is no need to compare him to rivals unless you want to.
I’d like to hear your pitch in making a case for him. Sound like fun?
What to say? Since his return from the war, my uncle has scarcely discussed his experiences in Vietnam. He is, furthermore, an extremely nice and funny guy, but there is a sense that his experiences did impact him tremendously and that those experiences affect his political views. In recent years, he has become more conservative in his views. Fox News is his primary source of media, and at a recent family get together, he once asked my brother, "So, how many real Americans do you think there are here?" I wonder if I would qualify as a "real" American? After all, it's difficult for me to conceive of the sacrifices that he made willingly for this nation, especially in a war that is now difficult to comprehend.
For these reasons, I thought long and hard about how to respond. It was difficult to gauge whether there was a part of him that was open to considering a vote for Obama, or whether he wanted to see my crazy liberal thinking in written form. I have the feeling the former is more relevant, but it was not enitirely clear. At any rate, the question made me think about why I support Obama from a different angle - from the perspective of not only hope and freedom, but also perspective how much previous (and presnt!) generations of Americans have had to sacrifice for the freedoms that we tend to take for granted.
While the causes of any war may be argued to be just or unjust in retrospect, in reality this makes little difference for those who are involved in the day-to-day struggle for survival. And this brings up the more pressing question: Is there really something special and transcendental about this country, something that transcends individual life and that makes sense out of the suffering that has been endured? Or was it all just a waste? Is the belief in a transcendental purpose behind history just part of problem that often leads to more pointless wars and suffering?
Certainly there are justified reasons for taking either road here, and it is not a simple question with a cut-and-dry answer. But after reflection, I have decided on the former option: that history does have meaning, that America does has a transcendent purpose, and that how one votes does actually make a difference in the unfolding of that purpose.
With that said, and with no further ado, here the final response I provided to my uncle (it turned into 4 paragraph instead of 2):
In moments of great consequence throughout history, Americans have realized that the gravest challenges of any era can only be overcome by standing together with a renewed faith that the common bonds of freedom, dignity, and equality that unite us as humans are stronger than any force of man or devil that would seek to divide us through the exploitation of our natural fears. So it was that our forefathers, united in the cause of overthrowing a corrupt king, emphasized not only the natural rights inherent to humanity as a whole, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," but also their hallowed and unshakable commitment to one another to stand together to the very end: "And for support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor." These grand themes have replayed themselves continually throughout time. Unity and a renewed belief in freedom were required to hold the country together and to abolish the scourge of slavery in the 1860s, and they proved essential again to making the great sacrifices of the 1940s that were necessary to defeat the Nazism and fascism that threatened to annihilate the prospect of democracy throughout the world.
Next to such epic historical struggles, our own situation may seem inconsequential by contrast. Nevertheless, when we look carefully, we see that the storm clouds of another major challenge are brewing on the horizon. The struggles that will define the present era, however, are different from those in the past in that enemy that would seek to destroy us is no longer confined to a single geographical location or political body. Terrorism, poverty, disease, and environmental destruction do not respect national borders and cannot be limited by them. The great challenge of our age, therefore, is to strengthen our international institutions and to make sure that the inalienable human rights on which this nation was founded are expanded and made available to their entire human community through a revitalized global order. Nothing less will suffice as a solution to the myriad problems that are facing us now and that will only multiply exponentially as the complex process of globalization sprints forward.
Despite these challenges, however, the search for solutions has been impeded by a political climate that is poisoned by partisanship and divided against itself. Unlike in previous times, we have not yet been able to put aside our differences, affirm our common humanity, and rise together as a single nation to confront the daunting threats of the new century. Yet history teaches that this is exactly what is required for us to be successful in the face of great adversity. The present situation requires a president who can lead by uniting rather than dividing, who can reach out to legislators across the aisle to pass critical legislation, and who can accurately assess the challenges of the future while simultaneously charting a pragmatic course in the present that will help us to meet such difficulties from a position of strength.
I believe that Barack Obama can be that president for America. Not only is his extraordinary background itself a testament to the freedom, equality, and diversity that so many generations have fought to forge – the product of a middle-income single parent household with a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, he worked diligently to rise to Columbia University and Harvard Law School and later sought to give back to his community by toiling to spread the fruits of democracy throughout low-income areas of Chicago – but Mr. Obama seems to possess three attributes that I believe are critical for any presidential candidate to exemplify: 1) when making decisions, he appears to use his critical faculties effectively and to give a response based on his fullest sense of rightness without assessing how his response will satisfy constituents or pander to political interests; 2) he never forgets where his power comes from, and that he is an agent of the people and not the other way around, and; 3) he recognizes this critical lesson of history: that it is only by renewing the promise of freedom on which this nation was built that we can stand together, united, to meet the challenges of our day and to overcome the inevitable fear, a fear that would divide us, that arises whenever we are brought face to face with major adversity. For these reasons (and more) I urge voters throughout America to pull the levers for Barack Obama on this special day.
Now I'm off to cast my vote and play a role in making history. Best wishes and reflections!