I am 87 years old and have lived in this great country for all 87 years. I have served this country in the military and am still serving this nation. So, I have seen the changes. Leaders come and go and I have accepted all the politicians from both parties from one side of the aisle to the other. Some of the elected officials have legislated laws I accept because I’m an American and some I did not accept because I’m an American. But, and this is a big but, what I have seen in the last 12 years has left me wondering if this is the same country I grew up in. Everyone says that this is a country of law and order and what I have seen in the last 12 years is not a country built on a set of laws for everyone.

I have voted for both parties, Democrat and Republican, but that has changed in the past 12 years. Where have the “statesmen” gone? Where are the John Kennedys, the Ronald Reagans, the Howard Bakers, the Hubert Humphreys, and the Tip O’Neills in today’s leadership positions? I see the change in our elected officials. It has become what’s good for the party and not what’s good for the country. Since when does Congress disregard 63,000,000 American voters and try to repeatedly impeach a sitting president?

The churning questions are many. Since when do government officials lie under oath to Congress and not pay the consequences? Since when does the upper echelon of the FBI lie to Congress and the American people and get away with it? Since when are American citizens allowed to be unmasked and their identity leaked to the media? Since when can the head of the FBI leak information to the press and get away with it? Since when can the former head of the CIA and the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency say one thing under oath to Congress and another thing to the press and get away with it?

I believe the Pledge of Allegiance, along with “GOD,” should be put back in the classroom. We must teach the history of our nation, we must teach what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights says. The most disturbing of the many affronts to this country is the disregard for our Constitution. It is the bones upon which the body of this great country is formed. It gives flesh and substance to our heritage. Its principles, the rights it espouses and the delineated structure of our Republic are not being taught to the generations who will need to defend it in order to maintain the freedom for which it stands. The young who do not understand or honor the gift of freedom, they have to voice their dissent. We have failed as an older generation not to have mandated the study of this great document whose relevancy becomes more obvious as the chaos encroaches.

The branches of government have, of late, been consciously loaded with dissenters to freedom from a great number of Americans. The media has had disdain for our citizens, along with intellectually dishonest politicians who refer to voters as deplorable – it seems there is a concerted effort to bring down our Constitution and our inherent freedoms, guaranteed by that brilliant document whose stated rights and privileges are the envy of the world. The media was supposed to be our link to the truth …that link has vanished.

I believe that any American can achieve their full human potential in this country. If they study hard, visit Washington and stand in front of the monuments to the men and women who gave their lives for this country, they will understand what our forefathers fought for and died for to give us freedom of thought and speech.

These freedoms are the envy of the world.