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Two Gulf War Vets, One West Point grad and now Captain in the Arkansas National Guard and One Marine are four examples of the kind of men our nation produces. Two of them are deploying to Iraq.

I’ve been sort of off my feed lately of Peggy Noonan articles but she provides plenty of intellectual nourishment in the following piece…….

We fought a war to free slaves. We sent millions of white men to battle and destroyed a portion of our nation to free millions of black men. What kind of nation does this? We went to Europe, fought, died and won, and then taxed ourselves to save our enemies with the Marshall Plan. What kind of nation does this? Soviet communism stalked the world and we were the ones who steeled ourselves and taxed ourselves to stop it. Again: What kind of nation does this?

Only a very great one. Maybe the greatest of all.

Do we teach our immigrants that this is what they’re joining? That this is the tradition they will now continue, and uphold?

Do we, today, act as if this is such a special place? No, not always, not even often. American exceptionalism is so yesterday. We don’t want to be impolite. We don’t want to offend. We don’t want to seem narrow. In the age of globalism, honest patriotism seems like a faux pas.

And yet what is true of people is probably true of nations: if you don’t have a well-grounded respect for yourself, you won’t long sustain a well-grounded respect for others.

UPDATE: I will be adding more posts today bolstering Peggy’s contention that our nation is exceptional and other posts about why our kids are not learning about our great history in school.

Here’s a post that in its own way explains why our nation is a great one.

Hat tip: Wittingshire