Independence Day

My flag flies proudly in front of our house.

It's easy for me to display the flag; this is the third time in the last several weeks; Memorial Day and Flag Day preceded it. I was even one of those people who used only red, white and blue lights on my Christmas tree in December of 2001 as the wounds of 9/11 still burned.

I'm listening to The Stars and Stripes Forever as I write this early on July 4.

I take my patriotism seriously and, yes, I am proud to be an American. I might even play Lee Greenwood later in the day.

But, as with me and everything else in my life, it's not entirely simple. I hate many of the things we have become: greedy, selfish, arrogant, fat, lazy, uncultured, unfriendly and uninformed about the real perils to our great nation.

I hate that we are fighting two ill-advised wars and that we are far too ready to fight than to talk. I hate that we fought in Vietnam, and these three wars together say to me we are a people who don't learn from our mistakes.

But I appreciate that we fought in and won World War II and I applaud the bravery, dedication and patriotism of all of those involved, including my father, Lieutenant Colonel Frank R. Foery. Later today I will start watching Band of Brothers again, the excellent HBO mini-series about that war. I just finished reading From Here to Eternity, James Jones classic megatome on the troops in Hawaii just before the war.

In other words, I am thinking a lot about our country, its army and its history. I love that history and am very proud of it. I can only hope that our future can somehow be as great. I don't see it, but will be happy to be wrong.

Tomorrow night I am meeting my friend Dan, a 2010 Notre Dame graduate who just returned from a year of volunteer work in Haiti. Perhaps he is the future. If there are enough fine young people like him then maybe we will be happily listening to John Philip Sousa for generations to come.