Posted on 12/26/2004 11:23:15 PM PST by nickcarraway
It was two days before Christmas. I was shopping with a friend in Beverly Hills. The sun was bright and the temperature was almost perfect. As we turned a corner coming back from Dutton's Bookstore, a real gem in Beverly Hills, we passed a manicure and pedicure shop. The door was wide open. As I looked in, I saw a woman in late middle age sprawled backwards on a chair. She was having her foot massaged by a young Asian woman.
To me, the woman who was having the massage looked Jewish, although I might be wrong. I looked at her in her bliss and I thought, "I wonder if two generations ago her ancestors were selling bananas from a pushcart on Delancey Street on the Lower East Side or if they were trembling at the approach of the pogrom in Lvov or just what they were doing. And now she is basking in luxury on a sunny day in December in Beverly Hills. Glorious, glorious America. Glorious America."
Then I thought, what about the Vietnamese woman who is massaging her feet? It's not the job I would want, but it's probably a lot better job than whatever was likely to befall her in Vietnam. Probably a lot better than working in a rice paddy for barely starvation wages. She probably has a car and an apartment with air conditioning and color TV, and most of all, she's free. Again, glorious America. Great, glorious America.
And then we walked for a half hour among the crowds in Beverly Hills just to wait for some photos I had taken to be developed. There were Japanese, Russians, Iranians, ordinary Americans, all hustling and bustling about to buy whatever they wanted and needed for Christmas. Later, my friend bought an enormous piece of jewelry for his wife and I waited while he waited for the ring, then watched him write an immense check for a diamond ring the size of a postage stamp.
And I thought, "America, America, God shed His grace on thee." And then I thought of something else. None of this, absolutely none of it, would be there without the men and women of our armed forces. Every bit of what we have by virtue of being a free and prosperous nation, every ability to buy whatever book we want at Dutton's, every ability we have to come here from foreign lands and escape oppression, every speck of a chance we have to make it and become prosperous enough to have foot massages -- all of this is behind the shield of the United States Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force, National Guard and Reserves. Every speck of everything good we have by having full pantries and full stomachs is because someone fought and died for us at Bastogne or Tarawa. Every Jewish person like me or that woman getting her feet massaged owes our bare survival to the men and women who fought and won World War II. Hollywood didn't do it. The NBA didn't do it. Martha Stewart didn't do it. Donald Trump didn't do it. The U.S. Congress didn't do it. Men and women from places like Prescott, Arkansas, and Bedford, Virginia, men who we never heard of–they are the ones who did it.
And the freedom we live in, the truth that we did not succumb to Communism....that we owe also to the men and women who fought the Cold War, in Korea and Vietnam and in Europe and in Greenland. We owe them the very air of freedom we breathe.
Now, we do not have to fear an Al Qaeda that owns a whole country -- Afghanistan -- and can use it as a base to attack us. And this, too, is thanks to the men and women who liberated that sad country and tore Al Qaeda out of it.
Today and every day, men and women are fighting in Iraq in horrible conditions, with saboteurs and terrorists among them to give that poor nation a chance to live in peace and democracy and to deny it as a haven for terrorism.
How much do we owe them? Far, far more than we can ever pay them. How much do we owe them for spending Christmas so far from their families, so far from safety, so far from comfort? How much do we owe men and women who offer up their very lives for total strangers like the people like me who were strolling up and down Beverly Drive?
Pay them more. Send their kids to school for free. Love them. Take them to our hearts. In the privacy of our homes -- a privacy that their lives assured–be on our knees with gratitude to God that He sent such great souls into our lives. At this season of peace, all glory to the men and women who go to war far from home so we can indeed live and breathe and get our feet massaged and pray in peace. We are nothing, just zombies, without them.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer in Beverly Hills and Malibu.
ping
bump
Talk about jack of all trades
Add thinker and philosopher too!
What a great piece to wake up to on Monday morning! At least...for me it's Monday morning right now! God bless.
"Glorious, glorious America. Glorious America"
We have more pet food choices than many nations have food!
All true.
He also has an I.Q. well into the genius range.
You mean he is actually smarter than Paris Hilton?
He's much smarter than a French hotel.
Talk about jack of all trades
G.K. Chesterton had a great quote along these lines in his Club of Queer Trades :
“This is Rupert Grant, Esquire, who can and does all there is to be done. Just as I was a failure at one thing, he is a success at everything. I remember him as a journalist, a house-agent, a naturalist, an inventor, a publisher, a schoolmaster, a--what are you now, Rupert?"
But I have great respect for Stein. I loved his Comedy Central show Win Ben Stein's Money.
...especially the immortal line, "Stein, you're screwed!"
"We have more pet food choices than many nations have food!"
Mainly because the Marxist hatemongers here and abroad thwart our efforts to spread American-style liberty abroad while aid we send is ripped off as Oil-For-Food or rots on docks while tyrants reign....
bttt
Ben...you always know how to say it just right. I add my small thanks to the men and women who fight for our right to live in this great country.
I used to spend a large amount of time away from home, really really far away when I was young.
Serving in the US MILITARY. I was well aware then that many degenerates we gleefully enjoying the freedom I and my fellow serviceman were protecting.
But, I didn't begrudge them their degeneracy; for I knew as well that many of my loved ones were going to church in freedom too.
What I didn't know then but I do know now is the world is not as simple as it once was. A mosque for example is not technically only a place of worshipping allah. The Koran explicitly provides for its use as a military storage facility, an operational base for military ops, an Intel center, a hospital for military wounded. In short, mosques are not churches. But in the USA the currently are protected as such....
Freedom is now threatened drip by drip from within; openly by the secularists; by neglect by so many asleep at the switch; by stealth by the long time-frame-minded muslim fanatics. These three are willingly and unwillingly allied against the very idea of freedom. We ignore them at our peril.
Ben, your article was great, but nary a word about the muslims who live in America, now to the tune of about 6 million plus....
Some of them love freedom for now for its serves their larger religious purpose; most of them will go along with their leaders long range plans to institute shaira laws increment by increment. For example, here's a tiny increment just reported from Britain: there, the 4 wives allowed by muslim law cannot yet equally inherit after the death of the mulim husband - 3 must legally be treated as mistrisses; but they are closer to pushing an exception to this law ... for the muslims.
Can anyone guess what happens if 4 wives are legally recognized as equal heiresses in the USA? I mean, it is a small point true ... but not really if you start to add up the implications to freedom. (Hint, there are 125 men per 100 women in Saudi Arabia, the largest male/female disparity in the world - now just how did it get that way??).
That said, Ben, I appreciate your patriotism.
bump
He is living the perfect Saggitarius life ;^) (Oh, and yes, he is a Saggitarrius. . .(no flames please; offered only in friendly spirit. . .)
Ben Stein gets it.
I think this writing. . .by Ben and for Ben. . .and for us. . .is a simple thank-you and an reminder to all; why our Military, past and present, should be appreciated. . .
. . .it is a tribute to all of America's soldiers and Ben gives thanks for any and all, who have contributed to making and keeping America free.
Think it is also a reminder to counter as well; the dire, daily message of the MSM and the rest of the self-congratulatory, 'we are the world' Liberals, who believe that the price we are paying - for a freedom and for another country, is not worth it. (Despite the reality that ignoring the poison embedded in this region, further imperils not just America; but the rest of the world. . .)
Think it is not meant to be a political analysis on all things that currently threaten our well-being.
[That said. . .I share your concerns re the threats we face within. Have often wondered, what that Muslim mosque holds. . .the largest in U.S. I believe. . .just outside of Washington D.C. . .and have wondered as well; is our Government curious . . .]
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