A Father’s Apology to his Children

“A Letter I’m Afraid I Might Have to Write Twenty Years from Now”

By: R. J. Burr

July 4, 2027

I have tried to find the words to tell you what went wrong. You children were fifteen, thirteen, and ten when the world changed. Now that you are older, I wanted to take a moment and explain to you how your life traveled down this path and why I can’t apologize enough for what I have left you.

In the past, some would argue that World War III started the day the towers went down, almost twenty seven years ago. They claimed it was the Pearl Harbor moment that drove the United States to engage with enemies they did not understand and began our isolation from the rest of the civilized world. As much as we would now like to forget, the truth is, people were at war with us long before then.

It all started in 1979, when 66 hostages were taken in Tehran, Iran, I was four years old. After 444 days, it was over and the first act of capitulation to the extremist occurred. The day President Reagan was inaugurated the hostages were released and because of the actions by President Carter before him, no recourse could be taken against those who perpetuated the act. That incident set the template for the next twenty plus years as the free world was under attack by extremist from all corners of the globe and more times than not their deeds went unpunished. Positioning for political power and the expedient solution without regard for future complications, politicians tried to explain away the attacks against liberty as isolated occurrences and with the help of the main stream press they were able to convince the American people that none of these actions had any connection to the other, then came Sept. 11, 2001. For a brief moment in time, after 3,000 innocent people died, the American people understood the depth of evil we faced in our enemies and bound together in a fight for the future of our children.

That is when everything went wrong. In the years following, politics took hold and power grabs left common sense at the door. Decisions were based on popular opinion polls and personal gains, instead of what was right for the country. Some of the citizenry understood the dangers we faced but did not understand the toll the “Blame America First” crowd had on the remaining population. Instead of standing on our soap boxes and preaching the truth to the desperate situation we faced, we expected common sense to lead our people through the struggle. We expected people to know that if we did not face this problem now our children would have to face an even more dangerous problem in the future. We expected common sense to enable people to disseminate fact from fiction. We let politicians, media, and other outlets disregard common sense and cast inaccuracies across the spectrum without being answered. We, in fact, became what we despise the most Capitulators.

The Left portrayed the war in Iraq as a gross mistake and we did not take them to task for ignoring what was actually going on. We let them claim the death toll was to drastic for the American people to stomach, yet when you look at the death tolls from previous wars, the Iraq War’s total was minor. We let political correctness rule the day and in an attempt not to be portrayed as mean spirited, we did not aggressively attack their incredulous claims. We actually let them convince the world that America was the problem. By not promoting the fact that America and her people were the greatest force for good the world has ever known, we capitulated to those who profited from America’s defeat. As the old saying goes, “A lie told often enough, becomes the truth.” I apologize to you for letting these lies become truth.

That was when the snowball tumbling down the hill picked up steam. In the 2008 Presidential elections, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York was elected President and democrats won super majorities in both the House and Senate. Their first hundred hours were a blur. They opened the borders, cut the defense budget, and revoked the Patriot Act with one stroke of the pen. They then followed the recommendations of the United Nations and loosened restrictions on foreign governments aggressive towards the United States with the hope that the far reaching gestures of kindness would show them we intended them no harm.

By the time President Clinton was in her sixth year in office, she had accomplished all that she had hoped for. Even though the world around us was burning, domestically she was a queen. Utilizing all of the tools at her disposal, the super majorities in the House and Senate, the willing and fawning media, her newly appointed majority in the Supreme Court, and a level viciousness towards her enemies, unseen in any previous president, she was able to implement every dynamic of her liberal agenda without fear of opposition.

Her Universal health care for all Americans had gone into effect and dismantling the military, defense department, CIA and all foreign services provided the money for all American medical needs for the next twelve years. She had kept the federal tax rate on high income citizens below seventy percent and the lowest tax rate at thirty eight percent. The new welfare system provided income for over fifty six percent of the population and illiteracy rates soared. Eminent domain became the chosen tactic against anyone who spoke out against the course she was setting. The community became more important than the individual. In one of her proudest moments, she had succeeded in removing all opposition talk radio from the air and, with the help of the main stream media, convinced Americans it was for their own good. Her cherry on top was the fact that during her tenure the United States was only attacked eight times with a minimal casualty count of 1,736.

What the Left did not realize was that turning your eyes from the enemy and pretending they don’t exist does not mean the enemy has turned his eyes from you. When we should have been encouraging relationships with moderate Muslims, we shut our doors to them. When we should have been helping them scourge the people that had abused their religion, we let them fend for themselves. When we could have used our strength to go on the offensive and help provide a platform for them to unite the Moderate Muslims against the jihad, we turned our backs on them. We had the chance to spread freedom across the globe but we decided to provide a breeding ground for terror within our own borders.

By capitulating to the left and not compelling our citizens to do what was right when we had the chance, we let our country travel down the path of least resistance, by not standing up and letting everyone know what was at stake, we let the events of July 4, 2015 happen.

Early that Saturday morning, twelve years ago today, people across the river in New Jersey awoke to the blinding light of the nuclear explosion in the heart of New York City. That blast was followed by multiple strikes across the country. In the span of two hours over ten million people had been incinerated. Our highly populated areas were targeted as well as our energy infrastructure. In the time it takes a man to commute from the city during rush hour, America had been returned to the dark ages.

In one day the extremist leveled the playing field. In a blink of the historic eye we were reduced from the most powerful force for good the world had ever known to just another third world country. By not doing what was right and fighting the fight, I let you, my children down. By not bringing accountability to the rhetoric being spewed, we, myself included, allowed the potential destruction of our way of life.

I hold myself responsible for what we let happen to the world. We let a vast minority of extremist set civilization back, for everyone, a hundred years. By not speaking up and learning the lesson that capitulation never works, we let country go down the path that past generations had started to go down before they realized the error of their ways. We opened ourselves up and created the problem that you, my dear children have to face.

The last twelve years you have stood by my side, living day by day and not looking toward tommrrow, as we have tried to regain any of what we had lost. I am sorry for the life that I have created for you. How can anyone ask for forgiveness when it was us who left this world for our children? I can not do it. The only thing I can ask is for you to remember what we have done. Remember the bad decisions we have made. Remember the path we took to lead the world to this. Remember the past or you are doomed to repeat it.

With a broken heart and the deepest sorrow,

Dad