The American Dream

I have seen the best and worst of America.  I have lived the American Dream and grown up with a deep appreciation for the gift it is to be an American. 

My grandparents were among the 30 million people who immigrated to the United States during the first quarter of the last century.  My father was a coal miner with a sixth-grade education.

When I was thirteen, my Father told me he was dying.  He said he had been to the doctor for the annual physical required by his company, expecting nothing and feeling fine only to find out he had black lung.  The doctors told him he might have five years to live.

I remember it vividly even now, the pain I felt as the entire landscape of my father’s life suddenly came into view:  a man raised outdoors with a love of nature, forced underground away from the light by the depression, the immediate demands of feeding a family postponing then eliminating any hope he had of getting an education.  I remember pondering the ironic tragedy of a man who had never smoked so much as one cigarette in his life acquiring emphysema – a disease most commonly associated with heavy smokers.

“I’m telling you this not because I want to scare you,” he said, “but because you know how important education is to me.  It looks like I’m not going to be here to help you.  I want you to promise me that somehow you will find a way to do what I couldn’t do and finish your education.”

There was no choice, of course, no possible response other than, “I will.”  And so I made that solemn commitment with fear and trepidation, not knowing how I would be able to do what no one in my family had ever done before.

Through the grace of God and the abundant opportunities provided by this country, I was able to keep my promise.  I won a scholarship to George Washington University.  The day I graduated from high school I left the small mining community in southeastern Utah where I was raised for Washington, D.C. and never returned.

Instead, I began working at the United States Senate while I went to college and law school.  After school and a brief stint in the Army, I returned to the Senate where I became involved in Congressional Oversight.  For 15 years as an investigator, chief investigator, counsel, director of oversight, and, ultimately, staff director of a congressional committee, I turned over rocks for the Senate looking for the scum of the earth.

I found people posing as doctors who had never gone to medical school, dentists who drilled holes in healthy teeth to create cavities they could fill at public expense, nursing home owners who abused people they were supposed to care for, clinical laboratories who performed “sink tests” – literally pouring the medical samples they gathered down the drain or flushing them down the toilet to spare the expense of testing them properly –  and a host of other creative criminals. 

An activist by nature, I posed as a Medicaid patient for a year, visiting clinics across the country to test the quality of medical care provided to the poor.  I went undercover and carried a wire in a joint investigation with the U. S. Attorney in New York, chased crooks and corrupt politicians in Chicago, and danced with the Mafia more times than I care to recall. 

Along the way, I was taken for a ride by a wise-guy with a gun in a shoulder holster and threatened by high-priced lawyers.  I was offered bribes and “soft” company, had my home burglarized, my phone tapped, and my car torched. 

Nevertheless, I took pleasure in shining the light on the vultures that feed at public expense and take advantage of the taxpayer, the poor and disabled.  To this day, I still get some satisfaction in knowing that over the years we recovered millions of dollars, saved billions of dollars, and helped put a lot of bad guys out of business and in jail. 

But despite our success, I found myself getting increasingly sad and cynical.  The problems we “solved” kept recurring.  The scope of the crimes we were investigating kept growing.  The Hill was becoming increasingly partisan and dysfunctional.  I couldn’t help feeling we were winning a lot of battles but losing the war. 

Finally, I came to the conclusion that the “top down” remedies I had pursued in Congress did not work.  Long-term change, the only kind that can be sustained, always comes from the bottom up.  Such is the nature of a democracy.

With this in mind, I did a l80.  I decided to look for the best instead of the worst and began what I have since referred to as a magnificent odyssey, searching for the heart of America.  Taking a lead from Albert Schweitzer, who observed, “Example isn’t the best way to teach, it is the only way,” I began looking for people who represent the best of our society, the best instincts of man, and the best part of our selves. 

The people I write about in my books and blog emerged from this process.  If you follow my blog, you will note they come from all walks of life and all ages, representing a cross section of the richness and diversity of America.  While each of these individuals is remarkable in their own right, what is most remarkable is the collective testimony they offer to the enduring vitality of America’s core values.

Ever since September 11, 2001 and the war on terrorism, increasing attention has been focused on our values.  But these events only extend a need that has long been evident. 

Twelve years earlier in his farewell address, President Ronald Reagan expressed this concern in “the great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells.”  At a time when he could have addressed many other issues, President Reagan chose to focus on the need for “an informed patriotism” in our country.

“Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America,” President Reagan said.  “We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American.  And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.”

President Bill Clinton echoed Reagan’s concern.  “Beyond all else, our country is a set of convictions,” Clinton said in one of his last speeches before leaving office.  “We hold these truths to be self evident:  that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Our whole history can be seen first as an effort to preserve these rights and then as an effort to make them real in the lives of all of our citizens.”

President George W. Bush, Clinton’s successor in office, eloquently expressed the same beliefs in his Inaugural address, reminding us “America has been united across generations by grand and enduring ideals.”

The genius of America is that the core values that make our country great are the same values that define our success as individuals.  That is why America is always a work in progress.  America is becoming.  America is a promise.  America is an ideal to cherish and a dream to pursue.

What are these enduring ideals? 

What are America’s core values? 

What makes us successful as individuals and as a nation?

More than a decade ago, I wrote The Heart of America:  Ten Core Values that Make Our Country Great to try to answer these questions.  It was published by HCI, publisher of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.  It has just been reprinted by Amazon and is available in paperback or e-reader.