by Mitt Romney
Not all Americans believe in a Creator, yet in my experience, even most of those who don’t nevertheless believe in a purpose greater than ourselves—perhaps our family, our community, or the nation itself. People who have purpose in their lives are more willing to sacrifice for others, and many choose service over personal comforts, often in ways that strengthen our nation. People with purpose-driven lives invest in activities that often have lasting and beneficial impact on the society as a whole. When people raise children, promote their education, endow them with enduring values, and set them on a productive life course, the nation as a whole is the beneficiary. The same is true for those who volunteer as scoutmasters, coaches, teachers’ aides, and mentors.
It is of particular value to the nation when men and women volunteer to serve in the military. Those who have served in any of the uniforms of the United States military have sacrificed for a cause greater than themselves, and they are heroes. As a boy, Bill McCaffrey was my hero. The son of a neighbor who lived just down the street and brother to my best friend, Bill was handsome, humorous, smart, and athletic—he played end on West Point’s football team and was its undefeated heavyweight boxing champ. Rather than join his dad’s highly successful business, he served for twenty years in the army, often away from his wife and four children on long tours of duty, undoubtedly missing baptisms and birthdays. He was laid to rest this last year, surrounded by family and framed by medals of honor from his country.
For other men and women in the military, the sacrifice that Providence requires of them is even greater. When Ann and I were given a tour of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in 2007, we were ushered into a large hall where combat amputees were being given occupational therapy, learning how to care for themselves without the use of one or more limbs. One soldier, originally from a farm in Iowa, had lost both arms. Ann had to quietly step out into the hall, as her tears were not what the soldier needed.
I have also visited the new home of Peter Damon in Massachusetts. An Army National Guard sergeant, he, too, had lost both arms in combat in Iraq. Few of us even consider the reality of such injuries throughout an entire lifetime by men and women like Peter. A group called Homes for our Troops had constructed the home for him and his wife, specifically adapting it to his now-limited capabilities. Previously, Peter had attended my State of the State address in the Capitol. When he was introduced, the legislators and audience erupted in cheers and an ovation that lasted over ten minutes. The applause was so vigorous that it dislodged a large glass ceiling fixture, causing it to fall to the floor below. We cannot do too much to honor our men and women in uniform, even when it causes fixtures to fall. The heroic members of our military protect America and allow it to continue to be the power and force for good in the world that it is.
America has many heroes, including many whose service is quiet, private, and primarily devoted to family. We all know these heroes. My sister Lynn raised eight terrific kids, one of whom has Down’s syndrome. Jeffrey is now almost forty, and his mother still cares for him at home. My uncle Miles worked hard in construction throughout his life to help pay debts that his father, my grandfather, left behind when he died. My mother Lenore often took troubled kids into our home, trying to love them back onto the right track—and sometimes she succeeded. My cousin Joan took in more than fifty foster children during her lifetime. What’s remarkable about America is that so many heroes surround us—and the vast majority of them are not rich, famous, or athletic. Most are ordinary Americans by almost every measure except their willingness to surrender self for service, and in doing so they make us a stronger and a better nation.
There was a time when many worried out loud that we would lose this American commitment to service. The celebration of the Me Generation, the advent of the sexual revolution, and the emergence of the drug culture startled my parents’ generation and persuaded some that a new culture of selfishness was rising. But for the most part, that generation of 1960s-era rebels became service-oriented citizens. Some of the battles of the sixties still linger, however, as with the current push to legalize marijuana, which reflects the passion and zeal of those members of the pleasure-seeking generation that never grew up. Their arguments are elaborate but empty—a great nation has never been built on hedonism.
Faith, purpose greater than self, and willingness to sacrifice are part of what makes America, America.
My Country ’Tis of Thee
We love our country. At the completion of the Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City in 2002, former vice president Dick Cheney attended the Closing Ceremonies. He asked me to choose one American athlete to join him in the president’s box, someone who would represent all our athletes. I chose Derek Para.
Derek is an Hispanic American, born and raised in Los Angeles. As a young man, he became an accomplished in-line skater, successfully winning many competitions. With news that the Winter Olympics were coming to the United States, one of Derek’s teammates suggested that he take up speed skating. Derek had never skated on ice before, but in-line skating wasn’t an Olympic event, and he wanted to compete.
Speed skating is a sport that’s usually dominated by strapping young men and women from northern climes—Johann Olav Koss of Norway, Eric Heiden of Minnesota, and Dan Jansen and Bonnie Blair of Wisconsin are its Olympic legends. Derek, on the other hand, is five feet four inches tall and slightly built. He was also utterly inexperienced at skating. Nevertheless, he began to train and prepared to face the best skaters in America. Lots of heads were shaking when Derek made the U.S. Olympic team, yet in the 500-meter event in Salt Lake City, he won a silver medal. A day later, he broke the world record in the 1,000-meter event, winning a gold medal.
As Derek walked into the box at Closing Ceremonies, I asked him what had been the most memorable part of his Olympics. What I will never forget, he explained, was carrying the American flag that had flown above the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, into the Opening Ceremonies.
Derek had been one of eight U.S. athletes chosen by their teammates to carry that most symbolic of American flags. Because it was tattered and burned, it could not be raised and flown from a pole, but had to be held horizontally.
Derek explained that when the flag was introduced—Ladies and gentlemen, the flag that flew above the World Trade Center on September 11 is now entering the stadium—he expected the audience to erupt in cheers. Instead, total silence. Complete reverence. They carried the flag to a position in front of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which then sang our national anthem.
It was hard holding on to my emotions as they sang that song and as I was holding that flag, Derek said. But then, the choir did something I hadn’t expected. They sang a reprise of the last line—‘O, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave/O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?’—and just as they did, a gust of wind filled the flag, and lifted it in our hands.
For me, Derek continued, it was as if all those who had died for America’s liberty had just blown into the flag—and the tears began to run down my face. As Derek related his experience to me, tears welled in my eyes as well.
I remembered some months before, hearing Mike Eruzione—the captain of the famed Miracle on Ice Olympic hockey team—describe to an audience his experiences at the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. His most memorable experience, he said, was not scoring the winning goal that beat the Russian team or winning the gold-medal game against the Finnish team. It was carrying the American flag into Opening Ceremonies, representing the nation that is the greatest country on earth, he said. The audience burst into applause.
At an event in Utah leading up to the Olympics, I learned from an elementary-school teacher that Americans are the only people in the world who place their hand over their hearts when their national anthem is played, and so I paid particular attention to the medals ceremonies to see if that really was the case. Every gold medalist stood tall and immensely proud as his or her nation’s flag was raised and th
e national anthem was played, but what I had been told held true throughout the ceremonies: Only the American gold-medal winners held their hands over their hearts.
I believe that we instinctively place our hand over our hearts in memory of those who shed their blood for America. It is fitting that we do so during the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner, as that song—written during battle in the War of 1812—commemorates the sacrifice that won our liberty.
Former education secretary Bill Bennett has reported in his books and on his radio program that American schools are failing to teach our children about America’s greatness. America’s contribution to liberty around the world and our past and present sacrifice in treasure and life is simply not taught as it once was. While every child rightly has been instructed in the heroes of social movements, Bennett has observed, very few are taught of the patriots of the wars fought for freedom, particularly those of the twentieth century. Instead, he explains, some educators are smitten with a devotion to multiculturalism, not merely as an appreciation of the cultures and customs of other peoples, but out of a conviction that no single system of values is superior to another, including our own. This reorientation away from a celebration of American exceptionalism is misguided and bankrupt.
National testing bears out Secretary Bennett’s concern. Among eighth graders, for example, only 1 percent were able to explain how the fall of the Berlin Wall affected foreign policy. Think about that: fully 99 percent of America’s eighth graders didn’t understand why President Reagan made the bold call to tear the wall down, didn’t understand what life had been like behind the Iron Curtain, and didn’t appreciate the freedom that was won for hundreds of millions of people, thanks to American resolve in the face of communism’s once limitless ambitions and vast military strength.
Among seniors in high school, only 14 percent could offer even one reason for America’s involvement in the Korean War, yet 67 percent could identify an important idea stemming from President Johnson’s Great Society programs. Orlando Sanchez, formerly a mayoral candidate in Houston, Texas, recounted that when he came to America in 1962, his schoolteachers taught him things that made him a patriot. But today, he said, millions of immigrants are given little if any appreciation for America’s greatness. And it is not just immigrants from foreign shores; it is native-born children as well. My young friend Theresa Eaton recounted that in 1990, she had a small American flag patch sewn on her San Francisco high-school backpack, and she was frequently asked by other students why she would do that.
I’m convinced the time has come for American schools to once again systematically teach our children about the heroes of the battles that won our freedom and about the heroes that fought in the wars that gained liberty for millions of people around the world. The multiculturalism movement must be unmasked for the fraud that it is. There are superior cultures, and ours is one of them. As David Landes observed, Culture makes all the difference.
The Respect for Life
There are cultures where life is cheap, but thankfully, ours is not one of them. The marines’ pledge to leave no soldier behind is emblematic of our entire military’s common commitment to their brothers and sisters in arms. Who can forget the heroism of posthumous Medal of Honor recipients Gary Gordon and Randy Shughart, army snipers in Somalia in 1993, who insisted on being lowered to the wreckage of a Blackhawk helicopter in an effort to save the lives of four of their fellow soldiers? Ours is a far cry from the kind of culture in which strapping on a bomb and blowing up a bus filled with schoolchildren is considered an act of honor.
We have long respected life, at its beginning and at its end. In part, this is the product of our Judeo-Christian heritage, which teaches that we are created in the image of God. And while almost all Americans profess respect for life, the subject of abortion has been a difficult issue for our country, for a variety of reasons. The debate over abortion puts two of our fundamental values in conflict: our respect for life and our love of personal freedom. Arguments in support of abortion generally revolve around the right of a mother to make decisions about her own body. But in any decision about whether to end a pregnancy, we must remember that two lives are involved, and on this point, courts have been long and conspicuously silent. Because the fact is that two lives, not one, are involved, I am unapologetically pro-life. Both mother and child are human beings, but only one does not yet have a voice to defend itself.
There are, of course, heartfelt and passionate convictions on both sides of the abortion question. Many women considering abortions face terrible pressures, hurts, and fears, and we should come to their aid with all the resourcefulness and empathy we can offer. At the same time, the starting point should be the innocence and vulnerability of the child waiting to be born. For all the conflicting views on this issue, it speaks well of our country that we recognize abortion as a problem. The law may call it a right, but no one ever called it good, and in the quiet of conscience, people of both political parties know that more than a million abortions a year cannot be squared with the good heart of America.
It Takes a Family
Consistent with our European religious heritage, ever since the founding of the nation, most Americans have expected men and women to marry and raise children. They also recognized that a number of circumstances could alter the typical pattern, as with divorce, the death of a spouse, or personal considerations.
Regardless of what one’s moral or religious beliefs may be about marriage, most will admit that the societal benefits of a marriage commitment between a man and a woman are well documented. Two parents are more able than one to raise, nurture, and financially provide for their children. The traditional family unit promotes economic productivity and enhances the opportunities of succeeding generations. Marriage and family are good for America.
If marriage remains in ruins among African Americans, we risk that they become a permanent underclass. If other ethnic minorities follow the same downhill path, they could suffer the same tragic outcome. And what of the nation? If marriage and family persist in a weakened state, or continue their decline, it is hard to imagine that we can remain the world’s leader. We cannot lead the family of nations if we fail the family here at home.
These conclusions are neither new, nor are they exclusive to conservatives. Thirty years ago, New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a giant among liberals who was also respected across the aisle, predicted the same calamities. In the 1960s, when the War on Poverty was launched, 7 percent of American children were born out of wedlock. Today, almost 40 percent of our children are born to unwed mothers. As noted earlier, among African Americans, that figure is almost 70 percent, a deep concern to almost every African American pastor I know. The collapse of marriage and the resultant epidemic of out-of-wedlock births may be America’s most critical social problem. More than that, it’s a human tragedy. Compared with children living with married parents, children living with single mothers are ten times more likely to be physically abused, five times more likely to be poor, three times more likely to use cocaine, twice as likely to end up in jail, and twice as likely to be in the bottom half of their class at school and to suffer emotional and behavioral problems. Single mothers themselves are twice as likely to be victims of domestic violence.
Of course, most children who are born to out-of-wedlock mothers also grow up in homes without a father. When fatherless young people are encouraged to write about their lives, writes author and National Public Radio and Fox news analyst Juan Williams, they tell heartbreaking stories about feeling like ‘throwaway people.’ Best-selling author Walter Dean Myers says that this is because they don’t have a father to push them, discipline them, and they give up trying to succeed . . . they don’t see themselves as wanted.
We have failed to take even the most elementary steps to reduce out-of-wedlock birth. Several years ago, my wife Ann volunteered to teach one day a week at the Mother Caroline Academy, an inner-city school for at-risk girls in Boston. The school was found
ed by two dynamic nuns who were intent on providing not just a good education but also good values. One day, in Ann’s class of about twenty fifth graders, Ann asked how many of them wanted to go to college. Almost every girl raised her hand. Then she asked, How many of you want to have a baby before you graduate from high school? And again, almost every hand went up. She was stunned, as was I when she related the experience to me. But then we realized that we should not have been so surprised; because virtually every one of the girls came from a single-parent home, they didn’t know anything else. They had never learned that attempting to combine college with teenage motherhood would be all but impossible, or that marriage would provide an enormous advantage for them and their children. Ann and the other teachers at the academy sought to teach those lessons and reinforce those crucial messages, but for millions of girls and boys, that message is never received, because it is never even taught.
In fact, today, our government’s policies often send the opposite message. If a girl and boy with no income fall in love and have a baby, they receive significantly more money from the government if they do not marry than if they do. Our safety-net programs inexplicably have been designed to penalize marriage, and as a result, for low-income parents, getting married typically means receiving fewer or no food stamps, welfare, subsidized housing, or Medicaid benefits. These benefits are linked to household income, and if the mother and father marry, they must report their combined level of income, which often disqualifies them from benefits. Think of the message that gives to a young mom: If she marries, she and her child will have less on which to live. What a terrible choice.