Early this morning when I woke up, I looked at the sleeping beautiful woman that lay next to me, the mother of our two sons, one we lost much too early, the other somewhere in Bahrain engaged in things known only to him. I noticed that my wife of 45 years still was as beautiful as she was when I asked her to marry me with words she swears were not “Will you marry me?”, but rather, “Will you be the mother of my children?” Being a young English girl at the time, she was not sure if I just wanted to make love to her or for her to become my wife. I only remember that she said yes and a few months later, on December 4th, in a chapel on top of a hill, near Harrogate England, on an Intelligence site known as the “13th USASA Field Station, Menwith Hill, Harrogate England”. I was dressed in my class A’s and she in a borrowed beautiful white wedding dress. As I go on, you will be wondering what in the heck does any of this matter or what relevance does any of this have to what follows. It has all the relevance and oh, how it matters, but I’ll leave that to you to figure out, I already know, and actually, to me, that is really all the relevance that matters.
Growing up, other than my mother or father, God was all I depended on and continues to be the driving factor in my life for all that I believe in. With all my heart I know that God brought Val into my life, gave birth to the gifts of my sons, Milt III and Wayne, who growing up provided me the inner strength to do what I did while I served my country in a field of intelligence that interlaced with primarily the NSA (National Security Agency) but also gave me contact with the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), a rewarding field that I took very serious, and know only God could have given me the ability to do what I did. My contributions were significant, but so were so many others, who like me, believed in an America that believed in the people who made up America, People of all races, religions, and cultures. I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but the entire time I was in what struck me more than anything else was how the different races, religions, and cultures never entered as a negative, only a positive, as it relates to how I felt about the America I loved, we all loved so much.
All the “Mothers” of all those who made up the various races, religions, and cultures, were “Mothers of America” and raised their children to be good citizens, great Americans, and dedicated soldiers involved in gathering, analyzing and disseminating intelligence reports that included reports that were sent at times directly to the President of the United States. So, the fact that the mothers of these men and women gave their children moral ethics above the average person, if they had not, they could not have been enlisted into such a sensitive branch of the military, had a relevance of great importance. Each mother, along with the fathers of these dedicated men and women, were made of the same substance of those who were the mothers of our “Forefathers”, and just think what they meant to the birth of America, the America that I speak of and is now in such danger of being lost.
Mother’s Day, if only the mothers of our forefathers knew what great things were in front of them, how great their offspring would be as a result of what they gave them. Substance, the substance of greatness and humility, yet these men would instill something in future children of the America that would become the leader of the world. An America that was flawed yet willing to grow in ways no other country in the world would, or I doubt even could. To be America, there had to be children of special mothers, children who would grow up first to be known as our “Forefathers” and then men of such great substance that few men would have, most would wear the uniforms of our military forces. Men, yes and women, who would fight in the war for independence, civil war that would bring together a divided America, Wars that only history books would reveal the reasoning, and now are being rewritten so that history is changed to fit those who now govern. But, the men and women are still wearing those uniforms, volunteering to place themselves in harm’s way, not just for the benefit of those who are fortunate enough to be Americans, but for those poor souls who regardless of race, religion, or cultural background, were born in countries where freedom had to be won and sometimes delivered to them by stronger men and women, called “Americans”. And deliver we did, count the countries, I can’t, I just don’t know my history well enough to name them all. But think of a few, like Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Afghanistan, and yes even Iraq, just to name a few. There were more, more where American men and women spilled their blood for reasons known only to each individual who took their oaths to defend and protect not only their own country, but their friends and allies. So many mothers, who sacrificed their own children because that is who they are, because of their “Mothers”, who gave each that substance that is hard to define, but easy to identify, and most are “Americans”.
Yet, America as great as she is, still reaches out to those who want to be a part of this great experiment called “America”, and mothers from countries around the world are instilling into their children the desire to become what most envy, an American. I have traveled all my life, first as a dependant of an Officer of the United States Air Force, then as a member of the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (USAINSCOM) that grew out of the United States Army Security Agency (USASA), who became an important part of the overall intelligence community. During my travels around the world, I observed the respect most people from all cultures, religions and races, showed towards anyone identified as an “American”. So may round the world wanted to be what we are, Americans, to live where we live, America, and as proud as they were of their own identity, there was a mystique about being an American. Americans always seemed to be willing to give, “give money, food, clothing, even medical assistance” for strangers, even countries that have either fought against us, or hate us, or have contempt for us. When there is a need, Americans are there, always first to be there to ease the pain of those around the world who are in need. Yet we now have a President who would rather define this great country as one of contempt for others, look down with distain on those less fortunate, self indulgent and unwilling to come to the aid of those in need. Do you ever wonder why our own President fails to see the good in not only the country of America, but the men and women of this wonderful and giving country? Most of all, this President pays little homage to the “Mothers” who gave birth to the great Americans that make up this great nation, and sacrificed so much so that America continues to have an abundance of men and women who are willing to continue the great experiment called “America”.
I offer quotes of some of our founding fathers, and while reading the quotes, consider the mothers and fathers, but today let’s concentrate on the mothers of these great men, and what incredible women their mothers must have been to have instilled into these “Founders” (of America, the constitution, and the Bill of Rights), the substance and strength to withstand everything they faced, so that we might enjoy what we are in danger of losing as I write this column.
Patrick Henry: “Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Beside, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of Nations, and who will rise up friends to fight our battles for us.” (War is Inevitable, March 1775).
James Madison: “The Ultimate authority…resides in the people alone.”
“It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much…to forget it.”
Samuel Adams: “the liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards.”
John Adams: “People and Nations are forged in the fires of adversity.”
“Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been shall be unfurled, there will be America’s heart, her benedictions, and prayers, but she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator of her own.
Alexander Hamilton: “The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the Divinity itself, and can never be erased by mortal power.”
Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
George Washington: “I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.”
Thomas Jefferson: “On every question of construction of the Constitution, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollected the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
The quotes above are examples of the character and substance of the men who make up our forefathers, the original “Founders” of this great nation, its Constitution, and delivered to us a free, independent, and envied nation. How proud their mothers must have been, be it while they lived, or in the afterlife, with their creator, God who blessed this nation, blessed the people who would find a way to govern while creating the basis of governance. How happy those mothers must have been. To those, and to all mothers of America, and all mothers around the world, I bid you; “Happy Mother’s Day,” today, May 9th, 2010.
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