Some of you might have seen this already but I can't have a blog and not post it on it...so, here goes: Dear President Obama,
My name is Harold Estes (read more about this HERE), approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.
I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor, allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.
One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man. So here goes.
I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish. I can't figure out what country you are the president of.
You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like: "We're no longer a Christian nation" "America is arrogant" -- (Your wife even announced to the world, "America is mean- spirited." Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)
I'd say shame on the both of you, but I don’t think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.
After 9/11 you said, "America hasn’t lived up to her ideals."Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.
I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.
Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.
Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.
And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts, who was putting up a fight? You don’t mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don’t want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.
One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you're thinking of.
You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.
You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.
And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.
Sincerely,
Harold B. Estes (Z: I'm not sure America can last without people like this)
14 comments:
I saw this before, what a great letter and indeed Mr. Estes says it all for most Americans. God bless him!
HAM
There is nothing to add to this exceptional heartfelt letter except to say, Mr Estes you are a treasure.
Thank you for your service, and your undying love for America.
God Bless you.
Pris
My pat on the back of that outstanding patriot who helped to maintain what freedoms we have today, but the good guy is wasting his time writing to the idiot we have as president.
Three more years, folks - three more years.
Z,
The Greatest Generation? Yep, this about covers it. Great letter. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Steve, I was SO hoping you'd enjoy the post below this..did you see it?
Isn't this man wonderful? I really fear the loss of these men will be such a hit on America; our kids are learning in schools that we're the worst, not the BEST. Where do we go from here?
I too wish there were a LOT more of him.
The Greatest Generation are my grandparents.
I sat up with Papaw many nights and listened to his stories, some wartime, some just about life in general.
Those stories will be re-told time and time again to my children. The lessons will be taught.
Patriotism will be passed down.
Even though my children do attend public school right now, I am vigilant to educate them on what I believe. I teach them to listen to their instincts, and know when they are being persuaded in a particular direction.
I don't talk down to them. I don't feel like there's time for that at this point.
Give 'em hell Harold!
I need to get my 93 year old next door neighbor Ed to write a letter. He's also a Navy vet. The ghetto commie will ignore all of them, but the rest of us will not.
Once he trots out the canard that the Civil War was organized around slavery you realize he's just cycling through the cliches.
Someone should tell him that American exceptionalism is a myth.
You mean you don’t want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts, who was putting up a fight?
--------------------------
Now, Louis Gates is a race pimping ass but "putting up a fight". He's an elderly man who walks with a cane. This guy is clearly "afraid of the dark". A common malady in his generation.
"Once he trots out the canard that the Civil War was organized around slavery you realize he's just cycling through the cliches."
You mean it wasn't, Ducky? You criticize, complain and question yet offer no alternative explanation — what's your Coles notes version of what was behind the Civil War?
Waylon
Well Waylon, top of the list would be state vs. federal.
Next would be the economic decline of the south as it became a one crop agricultural economy based on the historically inefficient plantation system. Now, slaves were critical to that system but the industrial age economy growing in the North was generating a collision course for two separate economies regardless of slavery.
So no nefarious foreign involvement in your opinion. Nobody and nothing that would want to see the undoing of the original American Revolution, back in those days?
Strictly a local and national event?
Waylon
Oh boy, more Civil War talk.
The question of slavery was indeed part of the causes of the Civil War, but let's not forget that slavery was legal and Constitutional at the time. The election of abolitionist Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency after the ban on slavery in federal territories to the west is what brought the South into rebellion, not to mention the obvious draw of destroying the US Constitution and killing as many Americans as possible splitting away from the North would give for Democrats.
There were economic reasons, but not those that Ducky mentions. When the South seceded, they took around 2/3rds of the coastline and ports of the United States at the time with them. The North would have gone to war with the South over that loss of tariff income even if slavery was illegal and unheard of.
The Civil War ended slavery, but until 1863, had nothing really to do with slavery.
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