QandO

June 05, 2004

A Shining City Awaits Him
Posted by Dale Franks

Ronald Reagan was the first president I ever voted for. He was also my first commander in chief, when I donned my country's uniform in his first term.

For many of us who served in the military in the period of the 80s and early 90s, the changes in the world--and the changes to our individual lives--brought about by Ronald Reagan were almost incomprehensible.

It's almost difficult to believe, looking back on it, the sense of constantly impending threat that hung over the world. In 1984, the entire mission of the US armed forces--then with 3.8 million men and women on active duty--was to wait and respond to the first rush of Soviet tanks across the Fulda Gap into West Germany. In Europe, military bases were little more than vast collections of bomb shelters, blast walls, and hardened aircraft hangars.

Those of us stationed stateside exercised constantly for the "mobility line", where a recall would bring us all in to the base, issue us with combat gear, and wing us to Germany or Italy to disembark to defend against the Soviet attack.

By 1989, the threat had dissipated entirely. By 1993, we were cutting tens of thousands of people from the active duty force every month. I remember feeling in 1991 that my entire reason for remaining in the military had evaporated. And that was a good thing. The Cold War was over, we had won, and America, for the first time in my life--for the first time since 1941, really--was safe.

But beyond that, the change that occurred in America itself were astounding. Many of you are probably too young to remember the 70s with any clarity. But, by the end of them, there were many Americans who believed our best days had been left behind, and that the future was going to be bleak.

During the 1970s, inflation had caused the price of nearly every good and service to double in price. By 1980, mortgage interest rates were 21%. The inflation rate was 12.4% per year. The unemployment rate stood at 7.5%. Tax rates went as high as 70%, and because tax rates weren't indexed to inflation, every year income taxes took a larger and larger share of the average person's earnings. Workers would get wage increases that didn't even match the rate of inflation, but would put them in ever higher tax brackets, meaning that wages were being eroded by both inflation and higher taxation at the same time.

The forces of freedom seemed to be on the run all across the world, and every year of the 1970s saw the USSR increase the number of nations it numbered among its client states. Even in this hemisphere, the fall of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua inflamed communist revolutionary movements in El Salvador and Honduras, "a day's drive," as President Reagan famously put it, "from Harlingen, Texas."

The US military was plagued with low moral, poor training, and a severe lack of equipment. West German officers referred to the US Army derisively as, "The Italians of the 80s".

It was the presidency of Ronald Reagan that changed all that. By the time he left office in 1989, the Soviet Union had already begun it's peaceful collapse. Inflation had declined to under 4%. 19 million new jobs had been created, as confiscatory taxes were repealed and tax rates indexed to inflation. The entire sad, sorry legacy of the 1970s had been completely washed away. He came into office at a time when America was beleaguered and on the defense at home and abroad. He left office with an America that was prosperous and at peace.

On January 11, 1989, Ronald Reagan said goodbye to us from the White House. In summing up what had happened over the last eight years under his watch, Reagan explained it this way: "Once you begin a great movement, there's no telling where it will end. We meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world."

As he concluded his speech, he referred to that image of America that he spoke of so often, that of a "city on the hill", shining its light to all the world.

You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office is the part of the White House where the President and his family live. There are a few favorite windows I have up there that I like to stand and look out of early in the morning. The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument, and then the Mall and the Jefferson Memorial. But on mornings when the humidity is low, you can see past the Jefferson to the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said that's the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from the Battle of Bull Run. I see more prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to work, now and then a sailboat on the river.

I've been thinking a bit at that window. I've been reflecting on what the past 8 years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one--a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled, 'Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.'

A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter, couldn't get out of his mind. And, when I saw it, neither could I. Because that's what it was to be an American in the 1980s. We stood, again, for freedom. I know we always have, but in the past few years the world again--and in a way, we ourselves--rediscovered it...

The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the `shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for 8 years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.

And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

Now, for Ronald Reagan, another Shining City awaits.

UPDATE:
The Politburo Diktat has a roundup of Blogosphere reactions.

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