Personal Narrative: My Vision Of America

I tend to find myself dreaming about America, my vision of America. It is impossible to not remember the service veterans and fallen heroes have fulfilled for the well-being of our country. World War II, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq; these wars tested against our freedom, and veterans took up arms and fought until they achieved the greatest gifts of all…liberty, happiness, peace, and freedom. They sacrificed their own brave men and women. They sacrificed seeing their families and friends. They sacrificed the possibility of not waking up the next morning. While the rest of us continued on with our everyday lives, our heroic representatives were venturing through jungles where armed and ready enemies lurked in the unknown, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. They ran into battlefields where guns and machinery were firing at all different
directions and not knowing whether they were going to make it out alive. Whether they would even have a future. Because of their sacrifice, I don’t have to be afraid of going to church on Sunday mornings and praying at night before I go to sleep. Because their sacrifice, I have the right to speak out and stand up for myself as well as my peers. Because of their sacrifice, I am free. I felt optimistic about our future, however, after discovering what is now currently happening to our country, I feel crestfallen to find myself pessimistic about what I anticipate could happen to our country’s body of fundamental principles.
We the people of the United States, have created a theoretical mass for ourselves in the future. However, it is not to be considered inevitable unless we change our unjustifiable political habits into respectable ones. And before I continue, I’m not a high school junior who is speaking out to our loyal veterans and people of America to change our country, but only to address and recognize what our veterans in the armed forces have done to save our country from dependence. We are abusing our constitutional rights and fail to exploit the unsolved problems in our political community.
Our freedom to speak as we wish is being challenged. While people still value considerable freedom of expression, they don’t realize that this right, once near absolute, has become less defined and less dependable for those espousing controversial social, political, and or religious views. The U.S Supreme Court has ruled that the government may be allowed to limit speech. For example, the government may ban liable indecency, fighting words, and words that present danger of inciting violence. The government can also regulate speech by limiting the time, place, or manner in which it was made. By way of illustration, the government may require activists to have a permit before holding protest rallies in the streets. I quote George Washington; “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” Freedom of religion is also being challenged, as well as on the bridge of not being a right anymore.
All across America, religious institutions and individuals are being subjected to increasing restrictions on their free exercise of religion. Last year in Wichita, Kansas, a Christian minister was hauled to jail by police for sharing the gospel and handing out tracks on a public sidewalk. Apparently freedom of speech does not apply on American sidewalks any longer. In 2009, an 8 year-old boy in Massachusetts was sent home from school and was forced to undergo psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross. During a congressional hearing last year, U.S representatives warned that “Christian militants” might try to “bring down the country” and that investigation should be required. No U.S citizen should not fight for our freedom of religious practice, even if they themselves are not religious. Once they take some rights away, it will be much easier to eliminate the rest of our rights and freedom. I quote George Washington once more; “It is impossible to govern a nation without God and the
Bible.”
Our heroic veterans color the ocean with their blood not to lose the freedom they have already protected and won. They lay their lives on the line to keep America’s great name and to keep the “American Dream” alive. In these turbulent and strenuous times, I hope that our protesters, critics, and government remember that it was are valiant veterans who secured us the right to question, protecting with their lives the foundation of freedom that holds up the whole structure we call protest and dissent. It is our responsibility to recognize the cost, remembering that our veterans paid that cost with their lifeblood, as well as remember that what they gave was and will forever remain incomparable above all things.
My vision for America? I want to feel optimistic about our future rather than pessimistic. As U.S. citizens, it is also our responsibility to never let the constitution crumble through our hands. Veterans have fought for our freedom. Sacrifices have been made. As U.S. citizens, we must not fail, nor ever give up, to hold our freedoms secure. United we stand, or divide we fall!