By Drew Berquist:
I know, I’m crazy right? Why do children need to hear about such horrific events at younger then socially acceptable ages? I get the question, and before serving overseas on dozens of deployments, I would have agreed with that sentiment. However, each time I came home from an assignment, I was more concerned about the social changes in our own country, they are constant. Whether within the education system or social norms in general, everything seems to be speeding toward absurd on a daily basis. While I admire so many in the education system and I am grateful for their hearts and passion for leading our youth, there are many who wish to dilute, and in some cases outright change, our history – or at minimum the sentiment behind it.
A call to action has to occur, where children grow up wanting to defend our nation and be heroes like they once did
I am all for protecting my children from information that they are not yet ready to digest, but I also want them armed with the truth as they grow up in this ever changing and increasingly dangerous world. It seems with our new apologetic spirit in America, the only way to make people comfortable with our history is to conveniently skip past certain events, or worse yet lie about the realities of our past – both the good and the bad parts. To be fair, most of these truths are marred when the subject involves issues of race and ethnicity, but the trend is a slippery slope. As an example of this apologetic spirit, many schools do not even cite the pledge in the morning anymore, whether because we are a societal melting pot and don’t want to offend people who chose to live in America, or because the pledge mentions God. Either way, the logic is deplorable. Stand up every morning, place your hand over your heart and recite the pledge of allegiance, because I promise you our enemies are pledging their loyalty to their own cause – and yes, we have enemies – lots of them.
Meanwhile, as we shelter our children from the atrocities of our past and present, pass out participation trophies to everyone who plays and generally weaken the resolve of our next generation, our enemies train their children to hate the west, love their cause, execute enemies at a young age and aspire to rid the world of the filth – us.
I am not, to be clear, advocating that we do the same with our children as extremists. The way radical Islam rears their children is the furthest thing from acceptable, but it also has to be understood. Rather than hide the truth or just turn your head so you don’t have to see the darkness that exists, we need to confront it. One such way to do this, and something that is critical to the future of our nation, is to teach our children in a sensitive, but honest way about good and evil. Because here is the truth, your children’s educators will not do it. We have to take this responsibility upon ourselves to raise our children knowing the truth – as it should it be. They should know that evil people exist and want to do harm to them just because of where they were born. Because from this point forward, the War on Terror has become more than just an effort to seek out and eliminate terrorist figures across the globe, it has become an ideological and religious struggle that will carry on throughout our children’s lives, and very likely beyond.
…our enemies train their children to hate the west, love their cause, execute enemies at a young age and aspire to rid the world of the filth – us.
So I say, for awareness sake, and because we too need a new generation of warriors to rise up and understand the world around us, to share your version of ‘9/11’ as an example of how good and evil really do exist. Again, spare the gore and please do not take my above thoughts to the extreme, but know that a chord has to be struck with America’s youth. A call to action has to occur, where children grow up wanting to defend our nation and be heroes like they once did, our future depends on it.
Drew Berquist is the founder and a Senior Contributor for OpsLens. Drew served as a counterterrorism officer for the United States Intelligence Community, where he performed more than thirty deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan to conduct intelligence operations. Drew has commented on national security matters on Lou Dobbs, Dennis Miller and a number of other shows throughout the country. Follow Drew and his staff of contributors on Twitter at @OpsLens
