Alright Richard.... Let bygones be bygones.
Btw, I heartily suggest that everyone get a chance to read "Citizen Soldiers" by Stephen Ambrose. The US soldier is not a professional "warrior", but an individual who carries an initiative eminating from a national sense of independence and egalitarianism (for the most part). The American soldier ALWAYS has been a cross-section of Americana, never a Prussian-style military aritocracy blinded by its own arrogance.
He is a man who can trudge forward in the face of horrendous conditions and awful leadership, and still find the determination to succeed and win. Yet he is the soldier that can show immediate compassion for his enemy even after they just spent time, material, and blood attempting to destroy them...
But most of all Americans like to win. Call it ingrained competitiveness, but Americans like to win. If they can't win, they don't want to play.
Kinda simplistic, but I still believe much of that spirit pervades our culture today. We are a people who believe that anything is possible, and then find the way to make it happen. We make our mistakes, learn from them, and then proceed to forget those hard-won lessons later on...
We vainly try to shape other societies and economies to resemble our own, blind to the fact that most of these nations don't have the cultural history that we have. Most other cultures are still consumed with utter corruption and a lack of legal structures and enforcement. That is what also helps to make the US rather unique in history.
But the final determinant of US cultural supremacy is, right or wrong,... we still see more people trying to get into this country than out.
So we must be doing something right.
Regards,
Ron |
