Reflections on Independence Day

​This week, a local news station in Tampa, Florida, interviewed Carl Dekel, a decorated Marine veteran of the Second World War celebrating his one hundredth birthday. Of Mr. Dekel’s many honors, he calls the Silver Star his “pride and joy.” The interview, which has now gone viral, is not what the news station had expected. I’ve transcribed Mr. Dekel’s words below, but the interview really must be seen:
 
“I don’t know, I’ve lived a good life, I’ve had a lot of love, happiness, smiling, telling everybody that everything was beautiful every day. If I went into my church and didn’t say everything was beautiful, they’d think I was sick. And I—I’m not that way. I mean, I’m a—I sincerely believe in this old world, that everything is beautiful. I mean, if I see—if I wake up in the morning and see these plants out here and all those flowers that are in there and the green grass on the ground—that’s beautiful. And people don’t realize what they have. They bitch about it, and then, nowadays, I am so upset at the things we did, and the things we fought for, and the boys that died for it. It’s all gone down the drain. Our country’s gone to Hell in a handbasket. We haven’t got the country we had when I was raised, not at all. Nobody’ll have the fun I had. Nobody’ll have the opportunity I had. It’s just not the same. That’s not what I—that’s not what they died for. I just…it’s just not it. I’m so sorry. …It’s just not the same. That isn’t what we fought for. Oh well. I shouldn’t be worried about it, I guess. I’m a hundred years old, they say. I worry about it, yes, I worry about it. …You just remember, everything’s beautiful. And live every day to the fullest. Just enjoy everything you possibly can.”
 
Watching this hero break down in tears at what our nation has become brought tears to my own eyes. His demeanor, his soft Southern accent, his raw patriotism called to mind my own grandfather, who enlisted during the Korean War. What kind of a country has this become? What kind of country is so totally consumed with evil that it leads its ancient veterans to regret fighting for it?
 
America is no more. America is dead, a festering carcass whose last bones have been long since been picked. The Satanic evil which now wears her skin as a costume is not long for this earth, either. I can feel it in the air—can’t you? The end of the polity known as the United States of America is nigh. The Federal Leviathan is groaning as it collapses under its own weight. It cannot be saved. It should not be saved. The Lord Himself has condemned it to ruin.
 
The United States of America is irredeemable. The Yankee now reaps the whirlwind, the embers of the fire with which he incinerated Old Dixie having finally blown back upon Old Glory to consume her at last. Ever since I learned the truth about the War for Southern Independence and the truth about Reconstruction, I have not been able to look at the Star-Spangled Banner in the same light. I never will. There is a reason why I only fly the Battle Flag at my home.
 
My people have not been free since 1865. My people have lived under a panoptic occupation, encompassing mind, body, and soul, for all of those long years since. The Southern people have nothing to celebrate on Independence Day. After all, whose independence are we celebrating?
 
This Fourth of July, mourn the nation that was and is no more, and commit yourself to bringing to fruition the nation that still can be.
 
Here’s my Fourth of July message, the only one appropriate for a Southron to deliver:

​Oh, I'm a good old Rebel soldier, now that's just what I am;
For this "Fair Land of Freedom" I do not give a damn!
I'm glad I fit against it, I only wish we'd won,
And I don't want no pardon for anything I done.

I hates the Constitution, this "Great Republic," too!
I hates the Freedman's Bureau and uniforms of blue!
I hates the nasty eagle with all its brags and fuss,
And the lying, thieving Yankees, I hates 'em wuss and wuss!

I hates the Yankee nation and everything they do,
I hates the Declaration of Independence, too!
I hates the "Glorious Union" -- 'tis dripping with our blood,
And I hates their striped banner, and I fit it all I could.

I followed old Marse Robert for four years, near about,
Got wounded in three places, and starved at Point Lookout.
I cotched the "roomatism" a'campin' in the snow,
But I killed a chance o' Yankees, and I'd like to kill some mo'!

Three hundred thousand Yankees is stiff in Southern dust!
We got three hundred thousand before they conquered us.
They died of Southern fever and Southern steel and shot,
But I wish we'd got three million instead of what we got.

I can't take up my musket and fight 'em now no more,
But I ain't a'gonna love 'em, now that's for sartain sure!
I do not want no pardon for what I was and am,
And I won't be reconstructed, and I do not care a damn!