Did you ever wonder why Americans are the way they are? Could it be the spirit of the original immigrants to this continent who came here with their two hands, few tools, and managed to carve a civilization out of what had been a wilderness?  Those original settlers left the land that birthed them for the freedom to worship their deity in the manner they chose and were willing to risk everything to do it. Could some of that spirit have survived in us?

I believe it has. Examples of that are in the news every day and have been for more than 200 years.

Think about how the founders of our country sat down and agreed as a body to fight a monarch with the finest army in the world to keep their freedom. They were a rag-tag band of farmers, merchants, and laborers who picked up their guns and fought for the freedom to choose how they lived and who governed them.

Think about how many young men joined the army in 1915 to fight oppression in Europe and how many of them gave their lives for people they didn’t know.

Think about how many young men joined the army in 1940 to fight a dictator who was exterminating millions of people because of their religious beliefs.

Move forward to today. There was a recent article about a group of people on a beach in Florida who saw two swimmers in trouble with rip tides. People on the beach formed a human chain and pulled those two swimmers out of the water to safety even though the beaches were posted “No Swimming” because of the danger of rip tides. They did not know the swimmers, but they were willing to risk their own lives to save them.

Think of the ranchers in Iowa who pulled together a caravan of hay for the farmers in Nebraska they never met when the floods in Nebraska drowned crops and herds of livestock were dying of starvation.

Think of the men from a small church in a little town near me who got together with their Pastor and flew, at their own expense, to Georgia to help rebuild what tornadoes tore apart. They didn’t know the people affected, but they were willing to help them because they needed help.

I remember caravans of feed and equipment pulled together in California and driven to Texas by volunteers to help people they didn’t know with their livestock after a hurricane.

Every day, when a traffic accident happens, people who don’t know those affected will stop their cars and get out to aid and comfort the injured until law enforcement, and paramedics get there.

This is what we do. This is what we are. We come in all colors, all creeds, and we help those who can’t help themselves, even risking our own lives to save someone we’ve never met.

I’m proud to be an American!