The Independence Day speech we never heard

On Independence Day this year, this is the speech I wish we had heard:

“My fellow Americans, today is Fourth of July, the day we celebrate our nation’s independence from tyranny and oppression centuries ago. That independence was won by the sacrifice of patriotic citizens, and sustained by the sacrifices of subsequent patriots we honor equally.

Those patriots made sacrifices not because they wanted to, but because they knew it was their duty as Americans. They were willing to forego their own comfort and security for the sake of their mothers and fathers, their sisters and brothers—even for neighbors and townspeople they had never met. And most of all, they did it for our children, who depend upon adults to act like adults and to marshal all their energies to protect and defend them.

Today our nation wages war against a pandemic, an uncaring enemy that has come to our shores to destroy us.

And today, on Independence Day, I call upon all Americans to act as patriots in this war. I call upon you to do it for your mothers and fathers, for your sisters and brothers, and even for neighbors and townspeople you have never met. Most of all, I ask you to do it for American’s children.

This enemy has disrupted our economy, shuttered our workplaces, overburdened our hospitals. It has slaughtered a hundred thousand fellow citizens. It has banished our children from their classrooms.

A month from now, a new school year will begin, and as your President, I accept the challenge to send our children safely back to class, where their teachers can once again guide their learning, face to face.

Our schools will reopen in August. This is my pledge to you. Our schools will not stay shuttered on my watch.

Our finest scientists insist that we can achieve that goal safely, but only if each of us will rise to the challenge to do three simple things: maintain social distance, wear a facemask, and wash our hands frequently. For proof, they point to the success of other nations that have beaten the pandemic down by obeying mandates, and have re-opened their societies to near-normal levels.

So today, on Independence Day, I call upon all Americans to make those three simple sacrifices for the next month — maintain social distance, wear a mask in public, and wash your hands frequently.

There are many who will call it government overreach for me to appeal thus to you. Many will feel it is an assault upon their God-given right to liberty, and too high a price to pay.

But I would remind them that if liberty is given by God, it is sustained by patriots, past and present. We have known this from our nation’s very beginning, when George Washington said: “Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest.”

And today, on America’s Independence Day, I call upon all Americans to surrender a small share of their liberty to battle an invading enemy. I call upon all Americans to act as patriots for the next month by maintaining social distance, by wearing masks in public, and by washing hands frequently.

I call upon you to make these small sacrifices willingly, as former American patriots did through far larger sacrifices to earn independence from the British in the 18th century, to abolish slavery in the 19th century, and to repel Nazism in the 20th century.

I call upon all Americans to make these small sacrifices for the sake of America’s children, who will begin school again in August, only a month from now. We can send them back to their schoolrooms, but we need your small patriotic sacrifice to do it safely.

God bless you in this caring, selfless endeavor for our children’s sake. And may God bless America.”

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That is the speech I wish we had heard on Independence Day this year. Had we heard it July 4, our children would be back at school this month, learning from their teachers Monday through Friday, cheering in the stands on Friday nights, dancing in the gym when Homecoming rolls around.

It would have been a promise fulfilled, a success to celebrate.

But we didn’t hear that speech on Independence Day. Instead, the person whose job it was to deliver it was cowed by a vocal minority of selfish, surly sissies who can’t tolerate feeling uncomfortable or put-upon for any reason whatsoever. Not even for a month. Not even for our children.

So here we are, with our schools foundering over how to proceed—and as a teacher, parent and grandparent, it breaks my heart.

Parents are rightly cautious, because studies show that even if children show few Covid symptoms or none, they may suffer heart and other organ damage that will manifest later in life. Classrooms are not safe today for kids, because we have squandered another month without mandates that would have made a difference.

So here we are, still waiting for a leader with the courage to call upon us to make some small, intelligent, patriotic sacrifice to make America great again.

How much longer must we wait?

Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.

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