Five golden rings, four calling birds … three American fryers … two turtledoves and a partridge in a pear tree.
Dave is a patriot. He does not drink French wine or eat French food. He will not even say the word “French” in the Christmas party’s rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” He requests we follow suit. As old family friends, and patriots as well, we begrudgingly agree to say three American fryers; we know how to choose our battles.
I am relieved when Dave does not sit next to me at Christmas dinner. He is a kind man, but this sweetness has simply earned him the nickname “Cheney with a heart of gold,” later modified to simply “Cheney with a heart.” I had learned how conservative Dave was when he explained that he had raised an American flag in his front yard every day of his life until the day of President Clinton’s inauguration, after which his flagpole stood bare for eight years. He claims he loved his country but would not support a bad president, so the flag did not wave until the next Bush took office.
Our families have been friends, or at least part of the same social circle, since we lived together in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Having lived in Saudi together during the first Gulf War, and having many Arab friends, his unwavering support for the War in Iraq is what baffles me most about him. At parties, when the subject comes up, I refuse to hide my opposition to the war. He tells me I am wrong: Dave thinks we should send more troops. He tells me I cannot be a patriot if I do not support my president.
I love this country. Having lived abroad, I see why the US is so great. My country is by no means a utopia, but I know nowhere else that so-freely accepts immigrants and integrates new people and cultures.
However, as a patriot, I also know that this country can be improved. An Austrian friend of mine was horrified when I informed him that back in the US, teachers were underpaid. He told me that in Austria, it was near impossible to get a teaching job because it was one of the highest paid, most esteemed professions. “Where are your priorities?” he asked me, confused and troubled for both my country and me.
As a patriot, I also doubt that our priorities are in order. When 41.6 million Americans, 16.5 percent of our country, did not have health care in 2003, our government chose to begin an expensive war. Now, $316 billion has been spent on the war.
I want to ask Dave, as a patriot, what he thinks of these realities and how he lives with the fact that his fellow Americans die in Iraq every day. I want to ask why he would not want his daughter serving her country in a war that raged on for nearly four years after Bush declared victory and left more than 3,000 of her American brothers and sisters dead and another 17,000 wounded.
My mother was a social worker in New York during the Vietnam War. She tells me stories of packed bus rides to Washington for protests and of the deafening cheers that spilled through her open apartment windows when the radio announced that troops were pulling out of Vietnam.
When she talks about this war, she clenches her fists, and her voice fills with desperation. She believes there should be a draft, even if it meant my brothers and I might go to war. If our representatives had children in the army, maybe we would only fight wars when we had no other choice. She wonders where we would be if that money went to fixing our country rather than ripping another apart. She opposes the war because, like Dave, she is a patriot.
