It was July 4th, 1995. Our family was fast approaching the end of a three week road tour of the American West. During those three whirlwind weeks, each day had been a new adventure amidst the almost indescribable beauty that is the Great American West. We'd traveled the Great Plains, where centuries ago, limitless herds of bison covered the land in a living black blanket; where the Plains Indians flourished and reached the pinnacle of their civilization, before the fur trappers and white settlers and cattlemen and gunslingers came to write their own parts on the pages of American History. We'd traversed the magnificent Rocky Mountains, awe inspiring in their unassailable majesty, as snow-capped craggy peaks stretched up to touch an incredibly clear cobalt blue sky. We had crossed the Great Salt Deserts of Utah and Nevada and were made to wonder what hardships the first settlers must have endured in such a foreboding, barren wilderness.

We'd visited the High Sierras and were overwhelmed, our hearts captivated by the unmatched beauty that is Lake Tahoe and Yosemite National Park, There, we lingered just a while to dangle our feet in crystal-clear cold mountain streams. Then it was down to California's Central Coast to visit historic Monterey and stroll down John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. We waded the surf and breathed the salt air at the beach at Carmel by the Sea, and we drove the Coastal Highway to revel in the rugged beauty of The Big Sur, where rocky cliffs fall away to meet the pounding surf and the deep, deep blue of the Pacific beyond. We'd been awed by the giants of King's Canyon and Sequoia National Park, as we pondered what things those ancients must have seen in the passage of time during the centuries they had stood there. We had marveled at the breathless beauty of Arizona's Painted Desert, and our eyes and minds had been filled up by the timeless magnificence of the Grand Canyon.

The seeds of such a wondrous trip had been planted back in 1967, during my days in the Air Force. I had just finished a thirty day leave to visit my family after completing my first overseas assignment on Okinawa. I was flying over the Rockies en route to San Francisco. From nearby Travis Air Base, I would depart for yet another year-long tour, this time in Southeast Asia. I peered out the window at the splendor that was painted on God's canvas 30,000 feet below. "It's so beautiful from the air!", I marveled to myself. "Wouldn't it be great to experience it from the ground, driving through the middle of it!" Those seeds took root, grew over the years, and finally reached fruition some twenty-eight years later. Now, on our nation's birthday, the climax, the "Grand Finale" of that long awaited trip was to be a Fourth of July celebration at New Mexico's Santa Fe Downs.

The fireworks display was dedicated to those who had made the ultimate sacrifice in service of their country. The patriotic enthusiasm of the crowd gathered there was unexpected, and I was deeply moved by it. It started me thinking about patriotism and what it really means. That evening at The Downs turned out to be a catharsis for me, for it brought back many of my memories of the Vietnam War and the part I played in it. Along with the pride I’d always felt in having served this great nation, it brought me to embrace the feelings of anger, shame, guilt, betrayal and the sense of loss I had buried deep inside so long ago in what seemed to be another lifetime.