Betrayal of a Patriot

Years ago, a young White man was born to a United States that his parents and grandparents believed was blessed by God. He was raised to love the United States. He was raised to stand with his hand over his heart while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. He was raised to take his ballcap off when the Star Spangled Banner played at a stadium. His great-grandpa, grandpa, and father served in the US military. He grew up listening to Toby Keith, Trace Adkins, and Lee Greenwood in his daddy’s truck. He watched “The Patriot” and “Saving Private Ryan.” He was raised as an American Patriot.

When he saw the towers attacked, that young man knew it was his time to serve. In his late teens, he enlisted. He ran the miles. His hands bled. The sweat of the Southern heat in summer reminded him that he was in Basic Training. His High School friends were at the beach, getting ready for college. His destiny was a different kind of sand, with new friends, who took an oath with him.

After training he found himself in the Muslim world. He fought. He watched his new friends leave wounded. He watched his new friends die. He struggled with sleeping. The sweat of the Middle Eastern sun reminded him he was in war. After years of service, he returned home. His enlistment was done. It was time to do that which his father and grandfather had done: get a job, get married, buy a home, and build a family.

Instead, our young patriot returned to jobs that had been outsourced overseas, to Chinese manufacturing sites by the very politicians that sent him to war. His friends graduated college and had little to show for their debt. The girls he thought he knew were nothing like the women he thought they would be. They were radicalized by feminist rhetoric and pornography. The churches were empty. The jobs were minimum wage. The only employment waiting for him were deadbeat positions at the local Walmart, where the manager greeted him with platitudes, “Thank you for your service.” His picture hung near a bathroom entrance, with the rest of the veterans in the store earning minimum wage.

Every day he leaves his dead-end job, incapable of affording a home… incapable of affording a family… incapable of affording the life his father and grandfather had. He goes home at night to a home all alone, and watches sports – whereby millionaire athletes protest his very existence. The news tells him he is privileged for being White. He watches footage of a country in which the flag he loved is burned by cheering crowds. He has trouble sleeping. The war fresh in his mind. The privilege does not protect him from the nightmares.

That young White man ironically still flies the American flag. That White man still stands for the anthem. That White man still covers his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance. That White man still watches the same television filled with politicians telling him empty promises of a better time to come and an athlete telling him he is the problem with society.

Betrayed, he grabs his gun and decides to end it all – like other veterans, roughly every hour, every day in an America that betrayed them.

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