John McCain once said, “We are taught to understand correctly, that courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity for action despite our fears.”  You are more than free to disagree, call me boring, or judge me as a nerd.  But, one of my wildest dreams is to be elected to the United States Senate in order to cross-examine nominees to the United States Supreme Court; improve our federal government’s role in our public schools; meet, visit, learn from, and build rapport with foreign leaders abroad; ensuring those much greater than I, our military veterans, are given the absolute best medical treatment money can buy; and filibuster late into a night and early morning for a just cause or cease a political circus that prevents us from forming “a more perfect union.”

John McCain is well-known and rightfully so for being shot down over Vietnam and held as a POW for 1,962 days.  While that may not be worthy of “hero” status by some crowds, too many may not know that John McCain earned so many demerits at the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, it surprised most that he even graduated.  Perhaps his struggles there could be due to having to live up to the high expectations of being both the son and grandson of four star admirals.  In fact, his grandfather died just a week after the unconditional surrender of the Japanese Empire.  I learned too that McCain did not really want to serve initially.  He joined up due to his family lineage and basically entered Annapolis kicking and screaming.  How ironic it always seems when someone who really does not want to do something originally, ends up actually championing the very thing they originally tried to avoid.

While recently Senator McCain is best remembered for his “NO” vote regarding the GOP’s failed attempt to repeal Obamacare, they AND the Democratic Party should remember that it was Senator McCain who tried to negotiate and compromise with then recently inaugurated President Obama who decided with Democratic majorities in both chambers of the United State Congress, he could get the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) passed without Senator McCain or any Republican support.  In my not-so-expert opinion, that very decision haunted, hampered, and paralyzed President Obama’s administration in his role as Chief Legislator for the final 6 years of his presidency after Republicans consequently won back control of both chambers in 2010. For those who might take those two stories and call Senator McCain a “flip-flopper”, I would simply reply with the quote of Winston Churchill who once said, “Those who never change their mind, never change anything.”

Furthermore, it was John McCain the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee for President in 2008 that wanted so badly to nominate his good friend, fellow U.S. Senator, and Democrat Joseph Lieberman to be his Vice President, but he was told that the GOP would not support him or his choice.  That led to the rushed vetting and choice of Sarah Palin.  McCain, the Vietnam veteran and former POW, also defended NFL players who protest by kneeling during the national anthem by saying simply, “That’s their right to do what they want to do as citizens.”  He never questioned their patriotism or love of country; he never berated, ridiculed, or criticized.  In fact, McCain actually ridiculed the Pentagon for paying $6.8 million to the NFL and other sports leagues for patriotic activities.

Whether my crazy dream is so far-fetched or how very unlikely, I sincerely hope if I ever do step on that floor of the Senate chamber, I can be as great an advocate for our military veterans as Senator McCain.  I hope I can challenge and prevent wasteful government spending like he did.  I hope I can advocate against the use of torture by our arm services like he did.  I hope I will be able to make the tough votes caring little of whether it will hurt me the next election cycle.  And, I hope I can “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” like he did and put service to my fellow man and my country over party like he did.

This world, our imperfect union, our “home of the brave”, our “sweet land of liberty;” could use a whole lot more of us all opting to act “despite our fears.”  May he now rest in God’s eternal peace.

Three score and fourteen years ago, well over a thousand American boys sacrificed their flesh and blood on a foreign battlefield on a distant beach.  They were both natural born citizens and immigrants.  They died alongside Brits, French, Canadians, and countless others.  Their successful yet bloody and sacrificial day led to the overthrow of a dictatorial regime that required its people to stand each day to salute and swear allegiance to a single man.  Those American boys died for their brothers whom they fought beside.  They died for their families and their homes so far away.  Yes, they died for a flag.  But, they also died for the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation inspired by God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

In their memory and in honor of all those have served or currently serve our nation of nations in the armed forces, may we fulfill our most trusted and vital task far beyond standing for that flag, a pledge, and a song.  That “we the People of these United States in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice (fairness), insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

May we also “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  (T. Jefferson—Declaration of Independence)

May we treat one another not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  (MLK—I Have a Dream)

And, may we expect and require our fellow Americans to treat one another with as much respect and fairness as rightfully insisted for Old Glory.

As Abraham Lincoln said, “It is rather for us the living to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”