What I can picture is the way sweat would bead on my own arm if I started waking at night between dreams of a new nation and nightmares of bloody defeat. Even more I can imagine the way my stomach would clench into a tight wad at the thought of telling my neighbors I thought freedom could be ours if we fought for it. I can imagine the lift of eyebrows, the aversion of eyes, and the frowning shakes of heads I would receive if I voiced my stalwart disdain for the powers that be... and my desire to overcome them.
I do not know what a hug from George Washington felt like, nor the taste of a lecture from John Adams, nor the grace with which Thomas Jefferson rode a horse across his fields. All I know is the raw excitement in a hug a president gives his wife when he learns he has been elected by his people. I know the passion with which my teachers and parents taught me about our history and our uniqueness, and the feeling of riding a horse through brook and forest and field and pasture... of my homeland.
All I can admire of these men is what they left, and what is written in history books about them. I can appreciate them mostly, and admire the idea of them. In many ways I wish I could glance back in time at their raw humanity, such as George Washington stained by war but riding home to reclaim his farm and his simple life after the Revolution. I'd like to see him again when he realizes the people want him as president, and the humble acquiescence with which I imagine he took up that blazing torch. There is so much to admire in these men that I will never know, and so I offer my gratitude and my commitment to treasure this country in the way they did.
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