World Traveler Loves America

My husband, David, has traveled to over 100 countries and worked in forty one as a chemical engineer and expert consultant on evaporates, mainly salt production. He has traversed the peaks of Tibet at 14,000 feet to the depth of the Dead Sea, 1388 feet before sea level. He has come face-to face with death on at least nine occasions and survived a helicopter crash.

In his words, “I have been to every continent in the world. Some famous, some not… Paris, Istanbul, Moscow, Vienna, Nairobi, Johannesburg, Peking, Shanghai, Jerusalem, Geneva, Leningrad, and Tunis. I have traveled Europe, Africa, Australia, the Middle East and Far East. I have felt suffocated and short of breath in the thin air of Lhasa, Tibet and the Solar De Hombre Muerto, Argentina.

It was a thrill to see the ruins of Ephesus, Jerash, Petra, Rome and the palaces of Topkapi, the Forbidden City, Bavaria, and England. I have walked where Jesus walked, looked out over the Jordan Valley as Moses did from Mount Nebo, sat at the same table used by Lawrence of Arabia. I have been hosted by King Hussein of Jordan, and had servants kneel at my feet and call me “Master.” (In China he was awarded an Honorary Doctoral Degree)

Still, even with the faults of the United States Government and the loss of patriotism I knew as a child, there is no place I would rather be than America. I treasure my citizenship.

Patriotism and Our Flag

I'm looking for our flag. What is the 4th of July without "Old Glory?"
When David and I were in the sixth grade at Lincoln Elementary School, we sang the patriotic songs, "You're a grand old flag.." We even memorized the "Gettyingsburg Address," by Abe Lincoln.
Everyday we said the Pledge of Allegiance- we loved America then and we love it now. Patriotism ran through our blood.
We believed the words from the poem on the Statue of Liberty,
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
—Emma Lazarus, 1883)
But, these teeming masses came legally. In 1926, and knowing how deeply his father and family wanted to emigrate from Holland to America, a great-uncle joined the Dutch navy at age 16 and labored for four years to earn the money to send his family to America. Then he returned to the navy and worked four more years until it was finally his turn to go to America. He arrived at Ellis Island only to be told his sight were so bad that he wouldn't be allowed to enter America. Discouraged, he returned to Holland and re-enlisted in the navy and was later lost at sea. Still, his parents and eight of his siblings enjoyed the freedom and liberty to live in
America because of his sacrifice.