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I am an eagle scout. I plan to join the United States Air National Guard as a Second Lieutenant when I graduate from Princeton University.

I love America, don't get me wrong, but this ain't no land of milk and honey.

Sure America may be leagues ahead of all the other countries in this world, even though you're bound to find countless people who disagree, but when America makes me cry, it makes me cry tears of frustration and tears of sadness.

Now I'm still studying here, and granted I don't have all the facts, but I have a few, and the facts that I have lead me to believe that the peaches of America are somewhat rotten and its cream is somewhat addled.

Ahem, uh, Viet Nam, the Civil War, the Jim Crow Laws, the Native Americans and Sherman, the Trail of Tears, and the list can go on and on and on.
This constitution of ours, if it was so clear in the first place, why has it been amended so much? All men are created equal and all are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-well-I don't think it gets much more concise than this.
Why were amendments even needed to allow women to vote, and to prohibit slavery, and to ban alcohol and then bring it back again?
And what about all the other drugs that people can't use if they want to in private without hurting anyone?
The government tested LSD on its citizens and then it pulled it like a firecracker out of their content, experienced hands.
The government sprayed its own troops with a defoliant. Soldiers became sick and their children became blind and developed cancer.
What about Mai Lai?
And what about all the laws banning "sodomy" i.e. homosexual love, in most states?
And what about the Native Americans? They are still being crapped on.
I don't know if things have changed in the last five years, but in 1990 the Supreme Court ruled that peyote ingestion be illegal even when used by the Native Americans in religious rituals, and I say "native" because they were here even before we got here- we imposed our laws on a people that were here before we were. This is like a man coming to your house and telling you to get out or live with him and follow his rules. It's ludicrous!
And what about the St. Louis, the boat that carried persecuted Jews to America from Europe during the Holocaust, which was turned away off the coast of Florida by the Coast Guard and had to sail all the way back to Europe!?
What about the biased immigration laws of the 1800's?

As for the flag, it is a piece of cloth. America should be about love and real freedom, not about limp symbols.

What's done is done, but please don't gas about America without telling about its downside, because it has one. Your home page is like one of those history books in which everything is all cherry trees and honesty, one which schoolchildren don't read anymore because it is pure bunk and pure propaganda.

Please feel free to use my letter. I would like you to include my e-mail address with it, if possible, [email protected], so that I may receive any flak that people want to fling at me if they feel invoked to do so upon reading my sentiments.

Yours truly,
David Abram Milanaik '98

From: David A. Milanaik
Date: November 13th,1997

Dear Friends,

When I was a freshman at Princeton University, I wrote a letter to the Flag Page. I am now a senior. When I was in my sophomore year, I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. As you can imagine, my views have changed radically.

It has been exciting over these years to read letters responding to the letter I wrote my freshman year. People have asked me to leave America, with not such succinct instructions. People have commended me for my determination and objectiveness. Some people have corrected errors in my letter; my favorite is my mistaking the Constitution for the Declaration of Independence.

I inform people who write me that although I am a born-again Christian, and many of my beliefs and aspirations have changed, my feelings about the flag have remained unchanged.

Many of my letters have been from veterans and soldiers who have expressed disapproval with my view that America's citizens should be allowed to burn its flag. I do not think that the flag should be changed or done away with, but at the same time, I think the only way America lives up to its promise of freedom is if it gives its citizens the right to peacefully hate it; this includes flag burning. Although I consider flag-burning immature and ineffective protest, it's as peaceful as writing an angry letter.

Unless there is a draft, it is unlikely that I will be in the military. I tried to enter, as a Marine, but my application for OCS did not clear. I wanted to do my part in making sure that my flag is defended, and that my fellow citizens' right to burn it is too.

I have the desire to attend a seminary and preach the Good News:
8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5 NIV

Of course, there is no place for sodomy in Christianity. It is obvious that God intends certain parts for certain purposes, and any deviation from natural order is both rebellious and dangerous. Am I saying all homosexuals will go to hell, or that I won't be friends with homosexuals? Of course not, but as I would advise someone not to put oil in the gas tank of his car, it is with the same concern I admonish homosexuals.

In his book, The Coming Revival: America's Call to Fast, Pray and "Seek God's Face," Dr. Bill Bright makes use of the following verse:
14if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7 NIV

peace,
David Abram Milanaik
[email protected] A second writer would like to add the following message;

Hi, I read the opposing view on your Flag Page. Here is an attachment to the statement that the US is not the land of milk and honey:

1852-53 Invasion of Argentina
1851 Invasion of Nicaragua
1853-54 Invasion of Japan
1854 Invasion of Nicaragua
1855 Invasion of Uruguay
1859 Invasion of China
1860 Invasion of Angola
1893 Invasion of Hawaii
1894 Invasion of Nicaragua
1901 Invasion of Colombia
1902 Invasion of Panama
1903 Invasion of the Dominican Republic and Panama
1906 Invasion of Cuba
1907 Invasion of Honduras
1910 Invasion of Nicaragua
1911 Invasion of Honduras

Not to mention the anexation of more than half the Mexican territory, the anexation of Texas, and the Mexican war. So much for the land of the free. Note that all these invasions were interventions by the US to countries which had no argument with the US in the first place.

Just a thought

anonymous, Monterrey, Mexico

Rochelle Fleming writes...

I would like to comment on your second letter on the opposing view. If the writer is going to comment on all of the invasions he might as well have all of his facts straight. I would like to point out that Texas was not annexed by America. Texas first became its own country, part of that fight was the Alamo. After becoming a country of its own it then decided to join the United States and did so by way of a vote.

If one is to argue a point, be courteous enough to get all of the facts straight before you decide that you are undoubtedly correct.

John W. Brown ([email protected]) writes...

As for the second letter of opposition (listing "U.S. Invasions") it is inaccurate. Com. Perry's landing in Japan in 1854-55 was gunboat diplomacy (several warships in the harbor?), but hardly an INVASION. I am not familiar with every INVASION referred to, but please - if an opposition letter is to be included here, either check the references or provide a rebuttal.

Congratulations on a web site well constructed; that must have been quite a job. I found it very interesting although a little garish; I'm not quite sure of your intent.

I'm an immigrant, like you or your forebears, to this continent. I left my old country England twenty years ago for an adventure and married an American in this country nineteen years ago, became a citizen in 1986; and as such have spent half my adult life in this country.

As someone who actually made the immigration trip here, I don't see the U.S. the way you appear to see it. I'm quite frankly not fond of nationalism in any form because it's divisive and ultimately warlike. American nationalism is fed by historical myth aggressively propogated as fact by the educational system and the media.

I believe that the desire to be number one is not always noble and that deceit is deceit even if you get away with it . A fine example of the consequences of historical deceit happened in the Vietnam War.

Americans are taught that they won the War of 1812. This historical myth was part of LBJ's education and his utterance that he was not going to be the first president to lose a war.

The tragic irony was that he would not have been the first. The War of 1812 was a severe loss to the U.S. who had invaded Canada, burned the Houses of Parliament in York - now Toronto (Look for that in an American history book!) . They were forced out of Canada and begged the Tsar of Russia to intercede with the British - the result was the Treaty of Ghent signed before the Battle of New Orleans. How many lives would have been saved had LBJ believed he would have been the second US president to lose a war?

Our history is full of this type of debasement of our culture which appears to be glorified at the expense of other nations. How many people are taught the real reasons and consequences for the War of Independence spring directly from the English Civil War and the rights fought for by Englishman in that war 130 years earlier?

How many Americans know that Lindbergh was not the first to fly the North Atlantic non-stop - he was the first American?
How many Americans know that Edison did not invent the light bulb - he was the first to the US patent office and developed it commercially?
How many Americans know that the U.S. flag is based on the British Red Ensign? The background is red with the union flag in the canton. White stripes were put over the red and after 1777 the union in the canton was replaced with the stars.
How many Americans know that the melody of the national anthem is actually an old British drinking song?
How many Americans know that the melody to `My country `tis of thee' is British?
How many Americans know that most of the constitution and bill of rights are directly from British custom and tradition. The bill of rights came into being in 1629!

The answer: very few if they went through the American Public School system!

There must be a better way of holding a people together rather than through deceit and juvenile ignorance. Everytime an American claims an invention or discovery one has a second of doubt.

This country should not need to portray itself in the manner of your web page: it has a lot to be proud of - more than some nations and less than others. I'm glad to be here in this country, not because it's the U.S. but because I really like the people.

Although beautifully constructed, your web page appears to me to continue the myth for the ignorant and as such is an embarrassment on the Internet.

Sincerely,
Matthew Starrett-Bigg

Matthew's comments are interesting as to our British roots, including British origins of the design of the flag, the melodies of some of our patriotic songs, and such. Of course, most of this is not widely known in the U.S.

I should like to point out that I spent two and half years in an English grammar school (in Cheltenham, England), and how many of the boys in the school were taught that their language is a mongrel --- descended from Anglo-Saxon, French, German, and a number of others (including Latin)? Darn few. The current British royal family is actually German royalty, from Hannover, and the King George that came over from Germany to start the dynasty couldn't speak a word of English when he arrived. Shall we hold all this over the head of Great Britain, or the British people? Heck, no.

Every race, every nation, every people owe a debt to those who came before, and that debt is usually honored only in the breach. We're no exception.

As far as the various bad things that our government has done is concerned, I have no doubt that it will do far worse in the future. And as long as We the people continue to let ourselves be bamboozled by sly politicians that will continue to be true. But the flag symbolizes something that is sometimes overlooked, and that is individual liberty. For that reason, we should respect the flag, even if our government deserves, so often, none whatsoever.

Chad Phillips writes...

Ever wondered what the U.S. Flag looked like to the unarmed Apache, as the U.S. 7th Calvalry bounded down on them, killing over two hundred men, women and children at Wounded Knee?

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