America the Beautiful

Happy 4th of July to all of America the Beautiful!

For some years, I have had the following Japanese baseball terms on my computer.  I pulled them out last night to share with a friend, and began thinking about them in terms of the 4th of July. It seems fitting; we typically describe baseball as our national sport.

hitto	hit
hoomaran	homerun
benchaa	bencher
settopojishon	set position
picchaamaundo	pitcher’s mound
tekisasuhitto	Texas hit / Texas leaguer
sayounarahoomuran	game-ending home run

(For the full list, scroll to bottom)

In looking at this list, I realized that there is an unstated story behind them. These are not just American words transmogrified into Japanese pronunciations. Many of them are quite likely words imported into Japanese by young boys.

There was some baseball in Japan from the 19th century. But the game grew after the American G.I.s who were stationed in post-war Japan began teaching local boys to play baseball, and organized them into teams.

That is an interesting aspect about military occupation in the modern world. We can imagine that in all previous history, the conquering soldier was someone to be feared, and to be avoided at all costs. But today, our troops are equally ambassadors of American culture, particularly of American generosity: generosity of resources, generosity of opportunity, generosity of leadership.

The picture above is particularly poignant for me, for both what we can see in it, and from what we can only infer. This is on Okinawa, after the fierce fighting there in WW II. The ethnic Japanese in Okinawa prided themselves on cleanliness and neatness, but these two girls have clearly been through some rough times. Then look at the hunger on the face of the girl in the background. She reflects her parents stoic discipline, but she is desperately longing for the food. What happened to these girls? Where are their parents, siblings, aunts and uncles? Are these girls now orphans?

In contrast to the girls, if this soldier has seen action, it wasn’t recently. He seems a bit innocent, callow. And so we can also imagine that not all of his fellow soldiers would have approved of him feeding these little girls. Over 12,000 American troops died in the invasion of Okinawa, and many of the occupying soldiers had lost family and friends, in this or other battles against the Japanese.

What we see is American innocence and generosity, a rather modern concept in warfare. What we cannot see, and can only guess at, is American toughness, and an insensitivity to the fate of the Okinawans.

Then look at the following.

Photographer Sgt. Roderick Cooper, U.S. Army. Children reflected in a service member’s sunglasses. I particularly like this one, for the image, but also because the soldier seems to be struggling not to smile. (Click for larger picture.)

Photographer: Staff Sgt. Stacy L. Pearsall, U.S. Army. Afghan boys laugh with a U.S. service member during a patrol in Afghanistan. (Click for larger picture.)

Photographer: Spc. Harold Fields. A U.S. Army soldier shows Afghan children photographs on his digital camera during a patrol. (Click for larger picture.)

Photographer, Cpl. Bryan Nygaard, USMC.  A Marine walks with local Afghan children while conducting a foot patrol in Helmand Province. (Click for larger picture.)

(For more pictures, Reuters has a photo album of soldiers interacting with children. Not all of the soldiers are American troops; but there is certainly a kind of American-ness about them, as we have undoubtedly influenced the idea of the modern citizen-soldier: Link.)

In these pictures, notice the ragged contradiction between the brutal lethality of the weapons the troops carry, v. the human and humane generosity toward these children. It is a jarring metaphor, and begs, even debates, the questions: What is America? What makes America the beautiful country that we are?

We taught Japanese children to play baseball. So is baseball really our national pastime?

Or are community and service our national pastimes? We watch more baseball than we play the game, but we often watch with family and friends. Between those two, we also spend a lot of our time coaching baseball and softball, donating money for it, attending games to see our sons and daughters, nieces and nephews, friends’ kids and neighbors’ kids, play the game. Baseball can be more than a spectator sport; it can also be a service to our children, a source of community, and a source of service.

We are living in a time of great loud jingoism. People want to waive the flag and say “America is the greatest,” and even, “America is the greatest of all time.” OK. But what would that mean?

Are we the toughest? Are we the greatest conquerors? No. The greatest conquerors would have been the 19th century English. Under Victoria, when that tiny nation expanded to dominate 1/5 of the globe and 1/5 of her people… through conquest. First runner-up would be Genghis Khan, whose kingdom dominated much of Asia and parts of Europe. America has never come close to either of those.

The fact is, our history shows that we go the other way. We have frequently conquered countries, and then given them back to the local peoples. Consider the list of countries we have invaded, most of whom we have defeated.

Dates	Country/Territory	Won?	Occupation?
1846–1848	Mexico	Won	Temporary
1898	Cuba	Won	Yes
1898–1946	Philippines	Won	Yes
1899–1902	China	Won	No
1906–1909	Cuba	Won	Yes
1912–1933	Nicaragua	Mixed	Yes
1914	Mexico	Won	Temporary
1915–1934	Haiti	Won	Yes
1916–1924	Dominican Republic	Won	Yes
1916–1917	Mexico	No	No
1918–1920	Russia	No	Limited
1943	Italy	Won	Yes
1944–1945	France	Won	Liberation
1945	Germany	Won	Yes
1945	Austria	Won	Yes
1945	Japan	Won	Yes
1945	Korea (South)	Won	Yes
1950–1953	North Korea	Stalemate	Temporary
1965	Dominican Republic	Won	Temporary
1965–1973	Vietnam	No	S Vietnam
1983	Grenada	Won	Temporary
1989	Panama	Won	Temporary
1991	Iraq	Won	Temporary
1992–1994	Somalia	Mixed	Limited
1994	Haiti	Won	Temporary
2001–2021	Afghanistan	Won	Yes
2003–2011	Iraq	Won	Yes

We gave them back. None today are controlled by the USA. Now, in our defense we did not need to keep them, we have never approached overpopulation in our semi-continent, and actually our population is now declining. We have never desired Hitler’s Lebensraum.

Our critics call us colonizers, but our few colonies today represent a tiny fraction of our people or our property. And none of them are agitating for independence.

Other critics would call us economic imperialists, and there is admittedly some truth to that. We are, like all conquerors, cultural exporters. We export our language, we export our customs, we export our cuisine, our films, our music, our clothes.

But I would argue that the most important thing that we export as we colonize the world, is our Central Idea:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”

And women. And children, too, as we see in these pictures. Because in these photos we see American G.I.s, who have lost friends, and perhaps family, to native troops. And yet, within a few years, or even months, they go back in and try to do what I suspect America does best. We build them back up.

No, not ‘back.’ At our greatest, we help them to become more than they were.

Notice that America does not demand that these children, nor their parents, speak our language, wear our clothes, adopt our major religion, nor even convert to our form of government.

And yet, those things will probably still happen. It is clear, over and over, that by service, that by restoration and expansion of a people and their culture, we achieve a much more effective conquest than we would through force. America is not the greatest nation in the world from our use of military might. I think we are the greatest because we serve, and because we lead by service. We are the greatest, not through power, but progress.

We do not subjugate these countries and insist that they be what we want them to be. Oh yes, we have done that at times, and there are many in America today who think we should do just that and only that, in other countries, but also within our own country: some would like to force others to be what they want.

But there is the other America, and I think the better America, who is like the good parent. Some parents insist that their children must be what they tell them to be. But the good parent wants the child to be what he/she can be, and more important, wants to be. So good parenting, modern parenting, does not determine for the child any more than we determine for our neighbors: our neighbors across the street, our neighbors across the globe.

At our very best, as parents to our children, and as partners to the world, we say, “Here are the tools. Build something.

“Amaze us.”

I would argue the the highest point of Civilization, the greatest accomplishment of humanity, was not the Moon landing, splitting the atom, nor even building Artificial Intelligence. To my mind, it was the Marshall Plan. Never before had a conquering nation immediately set about restoring their enemies as independent equals.

There are those who would disagree with my assessment of the Plan’s importance in history. But the results are hard to dispute: The Marshall Plan was essential to the Pax Americana, a world more peaceful and more prosperous than anyone has ever seen, more than anyone could have imagined at any point in history. A small detail is stunning: no two modern, free democracies have ever gone to war with one another. America cannot claim full responsibility for the growing number of free democracies in the world, but without the USA and the Marshall Plan, we can safely assume that the pattern would not be nearly so contagious.

Our troops won the war, they stopped a great evil, and earned the world’s gratitude.

But it was the Marshall Plan, and our vision of servant-leadership, that earned the world’s respect.

And that also earned the world’s cooperation and support. Without American vision, and our promotion of the rest of the world, none of the fabulous luxury we have today would be possible. Winning alone can’t do it.  It takes cooperation, working together.

The rapid progress we have seen in the last 80 years is because of our visionary leadership, and our diffuse support of peoples around the world.

Consider:  It is not just that the Germans, Italians, and Japanese no longer wish to war with us. They are now some of our closest allies. In many ways we have fewer tensions with those three countries than we have with some of our WW II allies, particularly France, Russia, and China.

This, to my mind, is the challenge to our world today: long-term goals are harder to visualize, and therefore harder to explain. And so for many people, in the US and elsewhere, the easiest idea is the best idea: Make ‘em do it. Force your children to do your will.

Force other nations to do your will.

But we have to remember, we as parents will decline, and our children will grow stronger. Do we want to see them grow, flourish, and become more than we could imagine? Or do we wish to restrain them, so that they will never exceed us?

And on a level of self-interest, do we want them to be our friends, and perhaps even look after us, as we decline?

This metaphor of old age does not apply to America… yet. We are still a young country, we still have resources and innovation. But we also have growing rivals particularly in Russia and China. In addition to those, however, one very concerning rival is Iran, a dictatorial country with a small fraction of our resources and almost none of our technology and innovation, who has nevertheless put us in a finger-trap. The trap is not large, it is not particularly strong, but we can’t seem to escape it.

Size and might do not always win. The Athenians defeated the Persians at Marathon. In the Varian Disaster, Germanic tribes defeated the Romans in the Teutoberg Forest. The English defeated the Spanish Armada at Gravelines. America defeated the English at Plattsburgh. Zulu warriors outsmarted the English in South Africa.

And currently? Tiny Ukraine is holding its own against the enormous resources of Russia. And as noted, Iran seems to have out-maneuvered us.

So now we can see two problems with imperial force. The first is that it seems to be the inferior long-term strategy: we keep our enemies, and we keep them struggling to become stronger; whereas working with them makes them our allies. The other problem is that no one is ever strong enough to guarantee uninterrupted victory.

The Marshall Plan was a new idea. WW I changed the world order slightly, mainly because it brought America to the international table. But there was no solution. Vindictiveness and imperial imposition, the attitude of “Make ’em do it,” led straight to WW II.

We learned our lesson from Versailles. So we tried something different… and the Marshall Plan was midwife to much of the modern world.

So on this 4th of July, I ask the question: What makes America great, what makes us the greatest nation that ever was? As noted, we have not been as successful in conquest as others have been, so it would not seem to be our impressive military might.

Could it be our service, our servant-leadership? Perhaps it has been our support for others around the planet, and sharing with them the ideals that we have interwoven into our support. History shows us that, without fail, might and conquest alone do nothing for progress and prosperity. The modern world must look to other sources for greatness.

So: Is America great because we are strong, because we are America the Tough?

Or are we great because we are visionary, and generous; because we are America the Beautiful?

hitto	hit
hoomaran	homerun
benchaa	bencher
settopojishon	set position
picchaamaundo	pitcher’s mound
waindoappu	windup
chenjiappu	change-up
insaidobeesubooru	inside baseball
kuikkumooshon	quick motion, pitcher’s throw to first
suicchihittaa	Switch-hitter
battingupicchaa	batting practice pitcher
naitaa	nighter, game with lights
seifutibanto	safety bunt
ranninguhoomuran	running home run, inside-the-park
fauru	foul
foabooru	four balls, walk
pasubooru	passed ball, catcher’s error
sutoraikuzoon	strike zone
supiidobooru	speed ball, fastball
shinguruhandeddokyacchi	one-handed catch
uesutobooru	waste ball, taking a pitch
kattoofu	cutoff play
gettsuu	get two, double-play
furubeesu	full base, bases loaded
kusshonbooru	cushion ball, off the outfield wall
kuriin’appu	clean up
kuriin’apputorio	cleanup trio
shinguruhitto	single, one-base hit
tosubattingu	toss batting, pepper game
nakkuru	knuckle ball
basutaa	bastard fake bunt
bakkusukuriin	back screen
bakkunetto	backstop, back net
fainpuree	fine play
sukuryuubooru	screwball
tekisasuhitto	Texas hit / Texas leaguer
sayounarahoomuran	game-ending home run