I’ve been struggling with something lately, and I think it’s time I try to put it into words. It’s not quite sadness; it’s not anger either. It’s more like a hollow acceptance. I’m writing this from my home in Thailand, far from the country I was born into, the country I served in the Navy with pride, and the country where my family wore uniforms, as police officers and military personnel, to protect something we all once believed in: the ideals of America. The Constitution, The Bill of Rights. The Rule of Law.
But lately, I’ve realized those ideals feel shattered, like shards of a glass too fine to ever piece back together. There’s no real sense of mourning left in me anymore, because how do you mourn something that no longer exists in any recognizable form? How do you grieve when you’re not even sure what has died?
I see what’s happening now, and it feels like watching an old friend fade away—not in a sudden, tragic accident, but in the slow, inevitable decline of someone who lost their way years ago. The America I once knew, the one I was willing to fight for, is just... gone. I remember the pride I felt for the country that stood for something beyond power, beyond politics. A country that valued integrity and the rule of law, a country that honored the service of its people because it was founded on shared principles and mutual respect.
But today, it feels like those principles have been traded for blind allegiance to the whims of a convicted felon who now returns in a few months as President. He isn’t there to serve the people; he’s there to be served, and the only loyalty that matters is the loyalty shown to him. It feels as though the core of the nation—the soul of it, if you will—has been hollowed out, leaving behind only a shell where real leaders once stood.
And maybe that’s why I feel numb, rather than sad. I’ve come to accept that the America I once believed in... isn’t coming back. It was not perfect, but it was someone I could work with. Mostly trust to do the right thing, most of the time.
But now? It’s like the loss of a fellow service member, someone you once shared a machinegun mount with. Someone you saw every day at morning muster, and trusted, literally with your life. and you KNEW, if you went down, your buddies would try to get you to a medic, covering you, bringing you clear of harm. and now that person, that you knew as a brother, or a sister, is gone, wasted, ticket punched, whose absence you feel in your bones long before you ever hear the official word ferom higher higher.
There’s no rage in this acceptance, only a deep, unspoken sigh and a quiet, unremarkable sort of grief. I keep trying to explain this to my wife, but it’s hard to find the words. It’s not a sadness for the loss of what I understood America to be itself—it’s more like a resigned acknowledgment. An acceptance that the country I once knew and loved, the country my family fought to protect, is no more...and it is likely not to endure. and the irony is, like Hitler's Germany, nearly a century ago... people voted for the man, who harnessed the hate,who promised them everyrthing, that he alone could solve it... that he would exterminate the vermin, the undesireables, and lead the thousand-year Reich...and years later his country lay in ruins.
Living here in Thailand, there’s no joyous escape from that realization. I’m not overjoyed to have left in the first few days of 2016.; I didn’t leave because I wanted to abandon my homeland. I left because the place I would have lived in was going to be at that time, life under Trump. And then, for a few years, breathing room. But now? 80 million have voted to remove democracy, and install a self-proclaimed dictator who is working as a foreign agent for our enemies. The country My family wanted to see for the stories I told of my childhood, the country that I would have gone back to... doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not the country I remember, not the place where the ideals of democracy and freedom held sway, not the country where service was a noble calling.
And so, I find myself living with this odd numbness. It’s not that I feel nothing; it’s that what I feel is muted, dull, like a knife that’s lost its edge. I still hold on to my own ideals—I still believe in truth, in justice, in the value of serving something greater than yourself. But I no longer believe that these ideals have a home in the country I once proudly called mine.
Maybe someday, that country will find its way back. Maybe someday, those shards of broken glass will be swept up and forged into something new, something different, but worthy of the same pride and loyalty that I once felt. Until then, all I can do is accept what’s lost, mourn quietly in my own way, and keep moving forward.
Because that’s what we do, isn’t it? When the battle’s over and the dust settles, we bury the fallen and press on. We learn to live with the ache of what’s missing, and we make peace with the silence that follows.
I guess that’s all I can do now.
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