Some Things Never Change

Thanks to my dad I became something I never thought I would be – a student of history. History was boring with no practical application in our fast changing, technically oriented world. Then I came across some pictures of my dad in uniform and the ship he served on during WWII – the USS Portland, a heavy cruiser that saw action at Midway, Guadalcanal, and other big battles in WWII in the Pacific. I asked him why he enlisted in the Navy instead of waiting to be drafted. He replied, “I wanted to protect my future family, just like my great grandpa and his dad before him.” Calvin K. Sunderland had just turned 17 years old when he enlisted.

After many discussions with him and others of his generation over the years I came to understand why young men take up arms in the defense of their country. I did the same. My eldest son and daughter, and a couple of our grandkids followed in our footsteps. Some in our current generation are questioning the foundations of our nation amid the current state of affairs. From the so called critical race theory to the violent upheavals that ravaged several of our nation’s largest cities, along with our shameful retreat from Afghanistan, an in-your-face challenge has been hurled at American citizens of all generations: Is America worth fighting for? If not, then why not tear it down and rebuild it into something else? What is your answer?

Here’s mine: America is the only nation in the history of the world that has provided the greatest opportunity to advance from poverty to riches and from being a nobody to being a somebody better than you were. It makes no difference who you are, what your background might be, or what your race is. Garfield Jenkins brought this truth home to me in the 1960’s.

Garfield started a janitorial service in Fairbanks, Alaska from scratch in the 1950s. During my high school years I had a part time job at the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner as a go-fer. “Mike go-fer this, go-fer that.” Garfield and his crew came into the building after I arrived from school. It didn’t take long before he and I became good friends and we always took time to talk about things in our lives. In some of our conversations he told me that he would be paying for three of his kids to attend college. He never graduated high school, but dropped out during his sophomore year to help his mom earn money for their family to live on.

In spite of that Garfield was never bitter. He was happy and grateful that he was able to send his kids to college. He told me something that I have never forgotten. One evening as I was pulling copy from the wire service we talked about our futures and he told me, “I got a great future. I’ll be able to tell God I sent my kids to college and they had a great future.” The smile on his face was something grand to see. He accomplished something I was never able to do. My kids had to work and pay their own way through college. When Garfield retired at 76 years old, he had paid for the college education of three of his kids, bought a home with all the luxuries, and had a great reputation in Fairbanks as a self-made man. He was admired and respected by everyone that knew him. Between Garfield and my dad I learned that change for the better can be achieved by anyone willing to work for it.

Garfield visited me one night in the United Press Service wire room as I was ripping copy off the teletypes. I didn’t hear him enter the room and was rather startled when he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “What’s happening?” This was the night the Watts, California riots hit high gear and large sections of Watts were burned and torn apart. Watts was a Negro area and in an uproar over what was perceived as wrongful actions by the local police. After getting my breath under control I told Garfield about all the rioting and violence. His response was rather graphic and I wont repeat it here. Basically he called his Negro brothers in Watts several colorful terms calling into question their sanity and intelligence. Why he wondered, were they destroying businesses and homes owned by members of their own race? Over the years we’ve seen the same thing happen over and over.

What is to be done? First of all, you cannot legislate interpersonal relationships. Garfield and I were good friends because of mutual respect. We both worked hard as we looked forward to a better future. The last thing we considered in our relationship was the color of our skin. You cannot buy economic equality. No matter how much money the government or social organizations spend there will always be economic inequalities in every society. Why? Because some just don’t want to work for a living. It’s easier to milk the government for money. Yes some people of all races due to physical or mental disabilities cannot work the same as you and I. They should be assisted by all of us. Everyone else should get a job and work for their living like I had to. It was not handed to me on a silver platter by the feds.

The opportunity – not the guarantee – to become the best you can be was one of the things that our ancestors fought to insure, and one of the reasons members of my family and I served in the military, so all could have the same opportunity. We fought against dictators and socialistic tyrants. My American brothers and sisters please do not bow down to them now. Otherwise the history of nations that came, faltered and failed will be repeated in America.