On Pearl Harbor Day last December, I came across someone who suggested that America needed something to wake us up and get us back on our feet. The reference was to Pearl Harbor Day and how it brought the country together 70 years ago.

Me: Didn’t we get that about 10 years ago? Of course, we may have squandered it on no-doc mortgages, but that’s our own fault.

Reply: not quite what I was getting at…. Unfortunately it takes a tradegy of some sort to make our country decide that we need to start acting as grown-ups and do what is right for everyone…. if you remember the rallying of the nation after 9-11…. I do not wish for anything bad to happen, but we must find that commom purpose to pull this nation back together and be as great as we can be. [minor edits by me]

Me: I find that common purpose every time I think about a great historical document: the Declaration, the preamble to the Constitution, even the opening lines of the Gettysburg Address: “… a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal….” It only takes a few minutes, maybe just 30 seconds — on Memorial Day, 9-11, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving — to remember those things.

Works for me just as well as the Ranger Creed, but those documents are more accessible to most than that!

That’s the stuff I think about on days like Dec. 7th. Lots of days, even.