As I was reading your last essay the word ought came to mind. We serve for what America ought to be both to its people and as a should be leader in the world. We (in this case I'll use that term for you and I) fight for the completed vision that starts with us finally getting it right. Then helping others to achieve the success by raising them up as well.
When I think of that incomplete vision the founders started with I cannot help but think.... America has become the very thing they fought against. So in a way... that promise you've been fighting for is an empty one. Without the completion of the revolution we will never see that promise kept. We need political leaders with deep understanding of this to keep us from back sliding again and again. Even in a completed revolution the words 'a Republic if you can keep it' will still apply and the promise will always hang in the balance.
You’ve put your finger on the essential truth: those of us who serve don’t fight for the America that "is," we fight for the America that "ought to be" — the one still struggling to come into existence.
This is one of the reasons why I refer to myself and my service life in terms of my being, "an 'Old Soldier', of the 'Old Republic', ... a republic that was always more aspirational than actual."
You’re right that the Founders left the work unfinished, and that in many ways the country has drifted back toward the very conditions they claimed to resist. That’s why the “promise” often feels hollow in the present tense. But I don’t think it’s empty — I think it’s unrealized, and therefore still salvageable. Oaths, after all, bind us to possibility, not perfection.
Where you land at the end is exactly right: even if we finally complete this long-delayed revolution — expanding liberty to its full intended circle — we will still face the ongoing work of keeping the Republic. The balance never stops shifting, and leadership without historical understanding only accelerates the backsliding.
As I was reading your last essay the word ought came to mind. We serve for what America ought to be both to its people and as a should be leader in the world. We (in this case I'll use that term for you and I) fight for the completed vision that starts with us finally getting it right. Then helping others to achieve the success by raising them up as well.
When I think of that incomplete vision the founders started with I cannot help but think.... America has become the very thing they fought against. So in a way... that promise you've been fighting for is an empty one. Without the completion of the revolution we will never see that promise kept. We need political leaders with deep understanding of this to keep us from back sliding again and again. Even in a completed revolution the words 'a Republic if you can keep it' will still apply and the promise will always hang in the balance.
You’ve put your finger on the essential truth: those of us who serve don’t fight for the America that "is," we fight for the America that "ought to be" — the one still struggling to come into existence.
This is one of the reasons why I refer to myself and my service life in terms of my being, "an 'Old Soldier', of the 'Old Republic', ... a republic that was always more aspirational than actual."
You’re right that the Founders left the work unfinished, and that in many ways the country has drifted back toward the very conditions they claimed to resist. That’s why the “promise” often feels hollow in the present tense. But I don’t think it’s empty — I think it’s unrealized, and therefore still salvageable. Oaths, after all, bind us to possibility, not perfection.
Where you land at the end is exactly right: even if we finally complete this long-delayed revolution — expanding liberty to its full intended circle — we will still face the ongoing work of keeping the Republic. The balance never stops shifting, and leadership without historical understanding only accelerates the backsliding.