What Makes a Patriot?

     I recently saw on the news that a Medal of Honor was bestowed upon another American soldier who was fighting in the war in Afghanistan.  His name is Sergeant Dakota Meyer and according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society website, he literally put his life on the line for his comrades, American and Afghan.

     Whenever I hear these stories of young soldiers risking everything they have in order to help others that are in perilous situations in combat, I have trouble understanding what exactly goes through their heads.  I specifically have most difficulty with comprehending how a person can overcome fear so much so as to do something so heroic.  In pondering this thought, I've come to realize that people all have different reasons for joining the armed forces (some more noble than others).  For instance, in a book titled Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer, Pat Tillman, a successful NFL player, leaves his comfortable life in the states and joins the Army Rangers to fight overseas.   Krakauer describes Tillman as having idealistic, virtuous reasons for fighting in the army and Tillman writes in his diary within the book that there are many people he trained with who were immature and only wanted to see things blow up.  

     Just wanting to see things blow up would not be a reason for someone to run into open fire and try to save others fully knowing that they would probably die as result.  This means that there is something powerful propelling people like Dakota Meyer into such danger, something virtuous.  I think many people have noble thoughts and live very good lives, but most in today's society don't seem to trade in a comfortable life for something as abstract as 'the right thing to do' which often has harrowing consequences.  People like Dakota Meyer and Pat Tillman somehow embrace this danger and self-sacrifice with dignity.

     As I am not Dakota Meyer, I have no way of finding out exactly why he joined the army.  However, I can infer from his recent actions of running directly into enemy fire to save his fellow troops that there were some intense, compelling, and probably virtuous feelings from the beginning of his decision to fight.  Perhaps it was his desire to save others for their benefit.  Maybe he wanted to give his all to feel self-worth and purpose.  It is also possible that the event leading to his Medal of Honor was in part caused by unrelenting patriotism, something many Americans identify with.
   
     The United States as we know it did start off with patriots fighting for values most would agree with, such as personal freedom.  Even though I would consider myself a patriot because of how I agree with the overarching values our country was founded on, the idea of patriotism is really abstract and has always been hard for me to understand, though.  I would consider myself a patriotic person but how patriotic am I when there are people like Meyer fighting to counter terrorism and promote American values?  How important is fighting fire with fire as it relates to being considered patriotic?

The Next Best Thing

Sometimes at school I feel like I'm literally the only person there that doesn't own an iPhone. I'm very grateful that my problems aren't worse than this, but it often feels like I'm left out. I'm not trying to complain about lacking an iPhone or iPod Touch and in no way am I angry or trying to bash those who have these products. I'm simply observing what I tend to see at school. And I understand that, of course, not everyone has one of these Apple products and my intention in writing this is not to accuse my fellow peers of being spoiled or anything like that. However, being one who doesn't own an iPhone, I noticed, particularly among my group of friends last year, that life often circled around a technological device. For instance, one time during lunch we all arrived at our usual "hang out spot" and everyone took out their iPod touches or iPhones right away. All at one time there was a YouTube video being played out loud, multiple Words with Friends games going on, and everyone's heads were tilted downward at their individual screens. Without one of these Apple products or a similar Smartphone, I was somewhat left out of it all in a sense.

I'm not trying to feel sorry for myself, but instead just trying to understand everyone's desire of getting the next best thing. I'm guilty of it too and that's because I, along with everyone else I know is American. It seems as though it could be an American value to go out of one's way to just get the new thing. We seem to really value getting what we want now. A camp counselor of mine a few years ago told us a story of how when he was in Africa, he was originally confused by how it took hours to simply get a hamburger because the way people view time there is different from us.

Along with doing things faster, however, we also just like to get the new big thing, whether it be a Scooter when we were seven or an iPad 2 for our birthdays coming up. On one hand I feel that we need to be able to live our busy lives in an organized way, and getting things done quickly is a good methodology. On the other hand though, actually going places and meeting people face-to-face can be important in my mind as well. Doing things non-virtually feels a bit more substantial to me sometimes. For example, why would someone text a person back and forth for a really long time when they could instead arrange to meet and have an actual conversation in person. This is how it was done before the age of technology, during a time that some speculate the people were happier. According to an article titled “10 Reasons Why Our Ancestors Were Healthier Than Us” from healthcave.com, “The distractions we have coming at us all the time aren’t helping us live a calmer life. Gadgets contribute to stress and fatigue…” So, perhaps it is better to take a break from our handheld lives stop stressing ourselves out over getting the next best thing. But maybe we should still keep up with what everyone else is doing so we don’t get left in the lurch and instead be social in that regard.

What are We Allowed to Know?

            As I’m sure we’ve all done before, I was beginning to procrastinate on some of my homework last weekend when something on the television caught my attention (and furthered my procrastination, yet at the same time it spawned this blog post idea).  My parents were watching 60 Minutes, a popular CBS television newsmagazine.  As the ticking of a watch sound synonymous with 60 Minutes subsided, Steve Kroft came on the screen interviewing Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, a very controversial website that essentially “leaked” information deemed confidential by government officials from throughout the world.  I watched part of the interview and couldn’t help but relate the American values associated with Freedom of Speech/Press with what was being discussed on the program. 

This is an excerpt from the interview between Kroft and Assange:

Kroft: There's a perception on the part of some people who believe that your agenda right now is anti-American.

Assange: Not at all. In fact, our founding values are those of the U.S. revolution. They are those of the people like Jefferson and Madison. And we have a number of Americans in our organization. If you're a whistleblower and you have material that is important, we will accept it, we will defend you and we will publish it. You can't turn away material simply because it comes from the United States.

            I find it very interesting that Assange would publically call himself a person with American values at heart.  Perhaps it is simply a public relations stunt and he is trying very hard to appease to his adversaries, many of who are American.  Although Assange has been commonly referred to as an anarchist and as Kroft puts it, “an anti-establishment ideologue with conspiratorial views,” I understand what his argument is as it relates to Freedom of Speech.  From the interview Kroft narrated that Assange, “believes [that] large government institutions use secrecy to suppress the truth and he distrusts the mainstream media for playing along.” 

            There seems to be a discrepancy between what we as the public should be allowed and should not be allowed to know.  U.S. officials are infuriated at Assange for leaking out information not intended for public attention and still he sticks by his ideals, according to the interview.  In my journalism class here at school, we actually had a discussion recently about truth and to what lengths a journalist should go to uncover it.  We took, for instance, the Watergate Scandal.  Was is the journalists who uncovered this scandal's job to bring forth the truth from muddied waters?  Or is it better to stick with the old saying, "ignorance is bliss" with issues such as this? The controversy regarding Assange caused me to further ponder a few questions that I’ve had much trouble answering: How much should ordinary people know about governmental issues deemed as confidential?  Also, to what extent should one go to find the truth, and should the people as a whole see this truth?