My Biggest Secret

I Am Afraid

Before I confess my secret, I have to explain why it's a secret at all. This may reveal why I think it's a big deal too.

I am an American. I'm pretty liberal although I have my own quirky takes on this. For instance, I think you have the right to burn the US flag but I might poke you on the nose for doing so. I have family members who went to terrible wars to protect that right to free speech and you've no business getting too sassy about it. Quirky.

I'm proud of my German heritage. My forebears immigrated from Edenkoben 200 years ago. They farmed and raised families. Generally we have done pretty well for ourselves since. This doesn't make me superior to anyone; it makes mine one tough immigrant family among many.

My Grandfather and Father went into the Army. As luck would have it they both served during rare years between wars. They did pretty well for themselves too, mostly through diligent, grinding, physically punishing work. They both used up their luck on that war thing and neither got rich.

As far as I can tell, they were never seriously afraid of anything. They took adversity on the chin, dusted themselves off, lit a cigarette and went back to work. They joked about graduating from the School of Hard Knocks. Joking about trouble was their way.

I'm sure they cried now and then but only briefly during perfectly solitary moments. Tough guys. Americans. Workers.

Fearlessness is common to both of them. They had reasons to fear. But they never yielded it a foothold in their lives. They said, "It's nothing. That's what it is to be a man." It's a good tradition.

All of this makes my secret hard to cough up. I confess: I am afraid.

I am not afraid of the Chinese, although I think they have us over an economic barrel. I am not afraid of Iraq, although they're causing us terrible harm, due more to our own frantic response to terrorism than to anything that punk dictatorship could have done. I am not afraid of North Korea or any of the ugly states in Africa, although I believe that we will fight an unspeakably horrendous war in one of those foul places within the decade.