A Patriot's Lament
My Flag, My
Country |
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On
the first day of his campaign, when he began by
scapegoating Mexican migrants, I said, "My God,
this guy is using Hitler's playbook word for
word; he's a damn Nazi!" Everyone told me
that I was nuts, 'nothing bad was going to
happen.' "That's what Germans said in
1933," I responded. Now, this August,
everyone has lost their breath in the horror of
realizing that the 45th President of the United
States is a neo-Nazi hatemonger of the worst
kind. The stench from the elected members
of his own party is putrid as they have all
soiled their pants in horror at his words
supporting the murderous race riot by White
Supremacist and neo-Nazi hate groups, pardoning
a racist sheriff, and his raw bigotry against
transgender patriots serving in our armed
forces.
On
a dark cold day in late December 1938, one of
President Franklyn Delano Roosevelt's army of
immigration agents looked at the small young
frightened woman next in line at his counter in
the main reception hall of Ellis Island.
It was late afternoon after a very long day, and
he was tired. He could hardly remember to
look at the face of the person standing before
him. Wordlessly she handed him a tattered
passport, no visa, no documents, just a German
passport with a big 'J' rubber stamped on the
front page right over her photo. He'd seen
that kind of thing before. He knew what it
meant; she
was a Jewish refugee, WOP -without papers-,
fleeing for her life from the Nazi Holocaust.
He could see the weariness in her eyes, from
what must have been a months long journey
crossing dangerous borders, and a sea sickening
steamship trip across the winter wartime North
Atlantic, just to now stand before him, fearful
of his uniform and authority. The babble
of a hundred languages echoed in the hall
incessantly, the stench of thousands of people
who had not bathed in weeks filled the air.
It wasn't an easy job. But, professional
and tired as he was, this immigration agent
remembered to smile at her reassuringly.
"No, don't worry," his face said, "I'm not going
to send you back to hell." He took a
refugee referral form from his shelf of forms
and copied the information from her passport,
rubber stamped it, 'WOP.' and handed her the form and
her passport, and then carefully pointed to the
area where she should go next to check-in and
wait. He sighed, took a breath and shouted,
"Next!"
That was my illegal immigrant mother's first
encounter with America. Twelve hours
earlier she'd stood on the deck as the ship
sailed past the Statue of Liberty, holding its
torch aloft, as she and hundreds of others wept,
"SAFE! Safe at last! In America, in
Freedom!" Decades later, as a young adult,
I took the tour. Ellis Island was now a
museum. The great dusty hall was empty,
but I imagined the babble of languages and the
stench of thousands of weary refugees; I walked
the imaginary line she'd stood on for eight
hours, nearly vomiting imagining her anxiety.
In the next area of the great hall, she'd waited
hours more until her name was called, more forms
were filled out. She was near fainting
from exhaustion and nauseous from starvation.
She hadn't eaten since before dawn on the ship
off the coast of North America in the roiling
sea rolling and rocking so that she could hardly
keep down the few bits she took. Finally,
after forms were filled out in the refugee
reception section, she was pointed into the next
room where charity workers waited with cheese
sandwiches. My God, a lousy cheese
sandwich on white bread never tasted so good!
American cheese, of course.
That was her first dinner in America.
Anyway, she was interned for months in a refugee
women's barracks on Ellis Island, forms were
typed up, letters were written, and finally she
was granted a green card to work and live in
America as a resident alien refugee. Upon
her release, as she stood on the boat quay on a
freezing cold February dawn in 1939, she was
issued five cents to pay for the ferry ride
across New York Harbor, past the Statue of
Liberty, to begin her new life in freedom in
America. That nickel was the only welfare
she ever received for the next sixty years of
her life in America. She became an
entrepreneur designing, sewing, and selling
ladies hats in her tiny shop, paying taxes right
from the start.
Truman was President when I was born in freedom
as an American citizen. My immigrant
mother taught me that "'American Freedom' was the
most precious thing in the whole wide world."
I knew where she came from, what she escaped,
how her parents -my grandparents- were gassed to
death by the Nazis in Auschwitz, what she went
through to get here, all of that; I grew up
understanding what the Nazis were, what America
fought in WWII.
In college in 1968, I saw
my fellow students burn the American flag in
protest against the Vietnam War; taking their
freedom for granted. As a
first generation American, I thought, "That's MY
flag! Its time to pay my country back for my
family's freedom." While thousands ran
away to Canada to avoid serving, I volunteered.
While thousand's lied and said they were gay to
avoid serving, I lied and said I was straight so
that I could serve. I served for ten years
and left proudly and honorably as a Sgt First
Class.
Anyway, that's the story, that's why I'm so
outraged that the current president is a Damn Nazi! For the first time in
his mean greedy life, he should do the right
thing for humanity and resign before his own
party throws him out of the White House head
first.
-Denny Meyer, fmr USN, SFC USAR