July 4 and the Americana worth fighting for

JOSEPH N. BELL

In a few days, Sherry and I will be off to North Carolina to spend my

July 4 birthday on what has become almost a traditional trip.

We will stay with our old friends, Cliff and Rae Hicks. There will

be martinis and good and wistful talk at dusk on their screened porch

that floats in the top reaches of evergreens above a waterfall.

There will be excursions into nearby Brevard -- the closest thing

I’ve found outside Indiana to a Court House town -- to see a parade

and sample food stands and street fair games.

There will be a trip to South Carolina to buy fireworks to shoot

off on the edge of the lake below the Hicks’ house. Neighbor kids

will come to watch and wonder and light sparklers.

There will be a trip to a theater for a performance of “1776,” a

musical play in which the Founding Fathers are seen as mortals

wrestling with some of the same problems the rest of us encounter, a

portrait that doesn’t always play well against the reverence required

by those who would use the founders for political ends today.

There will be a birthday dinner of fried chicken and mashed

potatoes and thick gravy flecked with crisp bits of meat and homemade

bread and a white cake with caramel icing.

There will be many fiercely contested games of hearts at a dollar

a corner, where honor more than money is at stake and disputes over

the rules are frequent.

For five delicious days, we will be awash in Americana, the kind

Cliff and I envisioned we were fighting for more than 60 years ago.

As a Marine infantry captain, Cliff led his company ashore at

Bougainville and Guam. I was lucky enough to stay mostly above the

action as a Navy pilot. We share the bond of military service in our

last holy war, of growing up in county-seat Midwestern towns, of a

working life devoted to journalism, and of social and political

convictions that have grown and hardened over the years. And at this

late point in our lives, we share the same concern that the things we

fought for and deeply embraced are being rapidly eroded in a country

we no longer recognize as our own.

I know how easy it is to look to the past as the good old days and

yearn for their return. I don’t think we’re doing that. This country

had serious domestic problems after World War II, especially in the

area of civil rights. Those problems were acknowledged and addressed.

This is still a work in progress, but it is infinitely better than it

once was. We put down the witch hunts of the McCarthy period, paid

dearly in lives and a divided country for Vietnam without,

apparently, learning anything from that dreadful mistake. We forced

the resignation of a president who tried illegally to expand and

abuse the powers designated to the White House, encouraged the

disintegration of communism, balanced our budget, worked respectfully

with other nations on common problems and took steps to protect our

environment.

None of these things were done easily or altogether successfully.

But they were mostly accomplished by elected officials bringing many

diverse views to the table and working through them to courses of

action that reflected individual convictions rather than lock-step

orders. The word “moderate” had real meaning at both ends of the

political spectrum, not just as an occasional knee-jerk reaction but

a state of mind. There were always the tough guys, the hard-liners,

the Newt Gingriches, but the whips they tried to crack were

eventually turned on them by reaction to such tactics.

Now, nothing feels right. The tragedy of the Twin Towers has been

turned into an autocracy in which any criticism of the ruling powers

becomes almost an act of treason. Where official, high-level lies and

secrecy are the norm. Where the end merits whatever means those in

power require. And where we are told that this behavior is not only

sanctioned but directed by God.

The parallels between Iraq and Vietnam are startling. Both wars

were launched on lies -- an attack on two U.S. Navy vessels by the

North Vietnamese and weapons of mass destruction and ties with Al

Qaeda in Iraq. Both had popular support early on that turned sour --

which is now beginning to happen with Iraq. Both were highly divisive

at home, as Iraq will increasingly prove to be as the casualties grow

and the threat of a military draft looms. Neither involved a direct

threat to this country or issues the men and women asked to risk

their lives could easily define. Both are wars we shouldn’t have

fought -- and from which it was exceedingly difficult to extricate

ourselves.

We will talk of these things on our screened porch -- and such

lesser matters as the imposition of fundamentalist Christianity on

the cadets at our Air Force Academy, the inexcusable meddling by the

president and his congressional leaders in the passing of Terri

Schiavo, and the deconstructing of Social Security with the same

willful determination that took us into Iraq and denies the threat of

global warming.

But most of all, I suppose, we’ll talk about the kind of country

our grandchildren are now stepping out of college into. The Greatest

Generation seems a distant echo today. The nation we came back to

after four years of citizen soldiering has been kidnapped, and our

kids and grandkids will be asked to pay the ransom. In the time we

have left, the least we can do is to demand our country back for them

-- and to say it loud and clear.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.