You know, I'd always believed that the greatest American generation is the one that was living in the here and the now. The question has always been, when were we going to wake up?
I remember when I was a kid. I was about this tall, and we were staying at my grandparents' house in the summer. And every morning my grandma would open the attic door and call up the wooden stairs. She'd say, "Kids, it's time to wake up." For me, she'd have to do this a couple of times before I'd finally lumber out of bed and cross the cold, squeaky wooden floor.
But finally, I would, and she'd be there in the kitchen. She'd be making breakfast. Grandpa would already be outside. He's been in the hen house, because "there was work to do." They were hardworking people. They were good and decent people.
Seemed to me that they were from not only a different time but I always thought they were from a different place. They weren't. The spirit of our parents and our grandparents, it isn't from some foreign place. It hasn't died out. It's the flame that flickers in all Americans. It's what sets us apart. It's what built this country. It's why our borders still teem with the poor and the tired and those yearning to be free. It burned with zeal from the immigrants from every corner of the earth who came here searching for a better way of life.
The flame that Lady Liberty holds up is the American spirit. It burns deep within all of us, no matter what your race or your gender or your religious background.
Out of all of the things that we have built, the powerful machines, the computers, the weapons of mass destruction that are buried in the middle of the heartland, the hardware and the software that we have spent millions on every single year to protect and keep the plans secret, our biggest seeming secret, the one the world wants most of all, isn't a secret at all. It's something that we would freely give to the rest of the world.
And while it seems so self-evident to us, for some reason it can't be duplicated. Yet it can be passed on from person to person, torch to torch. It is the American spirit.
If you weren't trapped in one of those towers five years ago, if you weren't on a plane or in the Pentagon, then you have reason to fall to your knees and humbly give thanks today.
Oh, it was a beautiful fall morning, on the edge of the land created by divine providence. Coffee shops were open. Children were on buses. People were easing into their typical workday when America's greatest generation heard the voice: "Kids, it's time to wake up."
Several times we had ignored the voice. We drifted back into twilight sleep muttering, "I know, I know. In a minute."
But, finally, we are awake and out of bed, for there is much work to do. The task before us now, it's much more daunting than what our parents and our grandparents faced, but we're stronger. We're a more prepared nation.
The torch has been passed. We are the greatest American generation. The American spirit is alive and well. Our flame has not burned out. It had just been dimmed while we were asleep.
Glenn Beck, CNN Headline News
www.glennbeck.com
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