Returning Home
Thoughts on Patriotism, Homecoming, and Those Who Will Never Come Home
Ten years ago today, I landed in Dulles airport after five months living in Scotland. It was a fantastic opportunity for me to spend that time in the U.K., and I had great adventures while I was over there, but when I heard the electronic voice on the PA system say, in an American accent, “Welcome to the United States,” I was so happy I could have broken down crying. To be honest, I don’t remember whether the voice said, “Welcome to America,” or “Welcome to the United States,” or “Welcome to the United States of America.” It didn’t matter. I was home.
Although I have greatly enjoyed the times I have traveled abroad, I have always had a distinct sense whenever I was abroad that I was in the wrong place. That I was somewhere foreign. But although I have been to very different parts of the United States, I have almost always felt at home wherever I was. I think you could plop me down anywhere in the States and I’d immediately know it was America, with the possible exception of some of the neighborhoods in Miami or in border states where everyone speaks Spanish.
I think people who haven’t been abroad for a long stretch at a time, who have only gone on short vacations to other countries, don’t understand the profound sense of homecoming that can hit you when you first return to the U.S. (I suspect a similar thing is true for the citizens of many countries when they return to their homes after a long period away.) For me, it helped that I had spent my entire life living within a few hours drive of Washington, and I’d been through Dulles airport more times than I could count.
David French recounted on a Dispatch podcast one time (I can’t remember which one and I’m not going to bother to try to find it) the experience of returning home after a year in Iraq. For me, I was only away for five months and I didn’t have a wife and kids. And I was in a country where everyone I met liked Americans. He was serving our country in a war zone where people were trying to kill him. Any relief I felt can only have been the pale shadow of what he felt, and what so many of our servicemembers feel when they first return to the country they’ve served.
Some don’t return. I didn’t post anything on Memorial Day, because I didn’t have anything to say that I haven’t said or that better writers than myself haven’t said before. I prayed a few times for the fallen and for their families. And I spent time with friends, enjoying the freedom and peace that was bought by the sacrifice of America’s fallen. I do think that we need to do both - honor the memory of the dead and spend time enjoying the gift they gave us. They died that we might live in peace and freedom and prosperity. It rained where I was, so there weren’t any Memorial Day cookouts. But that is the sort of thing to do, so long as we also raise a toast and say a prayer and perhaps shed a tear for those who gave their lives.
