My fellow young Americans, 85 years ago on December 7, 1941, our country was attacked on a lazy, peaceful day at Pearl Harbor. It dealt a devastating blow. One that could have knocked America to her knees. It did the opposite.
We took to the skies.
A select few of our young pilots were called upon to execute a top-secret counterattack on Japan. Doolittle’s Raid was practically a suicide mission.
Our country didn’t know it at the time, but they turned their eyes on those young men for justice.
And those pilots and bombardiers didn’t run. They didn’t hide. They didn’t buckle when they had already seen so much.
No.
They stepped forward.
They chose to give up the rest of their lives, give up marrying their sweethearts, and give up meeting their children so that American children could live, breathe, marry, and die in freedom.
Just a few generations later, those children are you and me.
If our nation now turned its eyes on us, could they trust us?
Loving our country and her people means more than basking in the freedom to say whatever we want. More than pushing for our generation to get its way because we are going to be the next ones to lead. More than wanting only “the fun part of freedom.”
Everyone should have freedom of speech. Every man and woman was born with that right. But will what we currently shout taste bitter in the mouths of our offspring, or will it be the anthem they sing as they teach their kids what freedom is?
Do those who mentored us have the assurance that the next generation is not simply waiting their turn to take political office for personal interests? Do they know that we won’t forget, trample over, take advantage of, or reverse the good they have accomplished?
Are we ready?
World War II was our last just war. Nearly a century ago. Our army mobilized only after Congress declared war on an attacking nation. If another country assaulted ours today, and Congress declared war, and the people demanded justice, would they get it?
When we look back to just one of the wars that shaped America, we realize the nation put herself into the hands of boys who were forced to become men. She put herself into the hands of young women who became nurses, stood behind those men, and helped many of them through their dying breaths.
Do we know what it is like to walk through a war memorial and truly honor those men and women who paid the ultimate price for freedom? To look back and silently promise them that their story, their lives, their deaths will not be forgotten?
This is not just history. This is our heritage. And when our heritage becomes a part of us, it refuses to become a relic of the past.
Are we willing to give more than a mere moment of silence to the same cause that our fathers were willing to fight and die for? To give our sweat, our tears, our fight, and, if it comes to it, our blood?
I don’t just speak of foreign wars and affairs or a power rising against us from without.
There is an enemy within. It is the crushing wave of false ideology, projected as truth, penetrating the young minds of our kids. It is the stifling of the God-fearing American spirit under the sweeping hail of propaganda.
I have testified at my state capitol for the same causes and worked in the same campaigns as older generations of patriots have. And I saw them stand. They left a legacy you and I still live in the wake of every day. Americans know what happened over the last six years in our schools, our hospitals, our churches, and even our homes because they fought for us to know. I interacted with ordinary people who chose to stand and paid for it dearly.
Some lost their livelihoods, their health, and some even their right to walk free. It began with one voice here, and another voice there. They alone risked what big government, big business, and people with power would bring down on them for their action. Yet, it was enough to inspire others to rise with them.
Because of them, Americans are now more informed, and therefore more equipped, to fight propaganda in our midst.
But, young people, are we?
It isn’t enough for one of our voices to be heard. It isn’t enough for one patriot to salute. We need a young generation of patriots who will salute. A people who together speak. A nation that falls on its knees in acknowledgment of the God of righteousness. Young citizens who hail the Constitution, its protection of our rights, and its checks and balances will rise up and say the pledge proudly as one nation under God. And never get over it.
One truth. One God. One more chance.
What our country thinks of these principles will alone determine the question of her greatness.
I know what it is like to be in the company of patriots. I have more rarely found it my honor to be in the company of young patriots.
The colors. They must be hoisted again. Not by the aged, patriotic, should-be-honored generations that have gone on before us.
No.
They must be passed on to and raised and upheld by our young, strong, responsible arms that will carry them for our children. Freedom isn’t free. Let it sober us. Those who fought for us have to know they can trust us. That we aren’t just progressing our way, but the way God, Designer of our liberty, gives us the responsibility to. Not just for ourselves, but for our posterity.
Freedom – it lives or dies with us.
We are the remnant.
By Alise Uhl, 18 years old.