How Can We Continue To Remain Optimistic In Lisbon Let Alone This Country?

It Continues To Be Tough To Remain Optimistic

The latest financial outlook for the country is rather negative.  Unemployment will remain around 8% into 2014, food stamp recipients are at an all time high, home sales are at an all time low, gas prices remain high, food prices continue to rise, and home equity has plummeted.  It is difficult to remain optimistic with all the bad news that continues to filter into the daily news.  We can now add an unusual earthquake on the east coast and a hurricane that headed up the east coast to New York.

If this were any other country in the world, I would be pessimistic, but this is America.  There is little that we can do concerning natural disasters, but the man made ones are within our ability to overcome and change.  Remember the earthquakes in California years ago in the Los Angeles area?  Highways and bridges were totally destroyed and the city needed a miracle to dig out from the disaster.  That miracle was the government getting out of the way and allowing private enterprise the leeway to build.  The roads and bridges were built in record time and the city returned to its usual routine.

I went to Biloxi a year after the hurricane hit and destroyed that area in Mississippi and Louisiana.  Mississippi had recovered along with Biloxi because their people decided to use their initiative and hard work to rebuild. New Orleans continues to be a disaster because too many of their people are waiting for the federal government to come to the rescue.  The tornados and floods in the Midwest ravaged numerous areas, but most have recovered because the people responded.

I just finished two books about the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea: “Give Me Tomorrow” and “The Last Stand of Fox Company.”  The first covers the battles of George Company, Third Battalion, First Marines and the second Fox Company, Second Battalion, Seventh Marines.  In both cases they were outnumbered by at least ten to one.  The entire First Marine Division was surrounded by over 100,000 Chinese and were not given much chance of fighting to the sea.  I was a teenager at that time and recall reading all of the newspaper and radio reports.  The negativity was unbelievable.  I think that following those exploits contributed to my joining the Marines when I turned 18.

Leadership and determination have been key elements whenever an individual, organization, or country are faced with what appears to be insurmountable odds.  Look at what faced Great Britain in 1940 when it faced the power of the German war machine alone.  The leadership of one man, Churchill, made the difference.  Our own country defeated the most powerful country in the world at one time and that was because of leadership by key individuals, especially George Washington.

I remain optimistic because I know that leadership can place this country on the proper course.  Unfortunately that leadership is not due until January 2012 following the next election.  The typical American is waiting patently and with bated breath.

Colonel Don Myers
USMC (ret.)