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By Sean Dietrich

WASHINGTON, D.C. – It was the height of summer. Early July. I was in town for a book event, to make a speech. I had time to kill, so I went to the National Mall.

The National Mall is “America’s Front Yard.” There are thousands of tourists, and even more screaming babies.

One particular tourist, however, stands out in my memory. A young woman who was wearing a shirt that read: “I’m not proud to be an American.”

I get it. Believe me, I do. Everyone is entitled to their outlook. But this was the National Mall. I mean, come on. Really?

The National Mall is definitely worth a visit. You see all the greats.

There’s the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. Good old FDR.

In 1921, Roosevelt contracted an illness that permanently paralyzed his legs. They said he’d never be a politician. They called him names. He used a wheelchair. But he proved his critics wrong. When making speeches in public, he usually appeared standing, leaning on his wife or sons.

He was the longest-serving president. He served four—count ’em—four terms.

Then there’s the Jefferson Memorial, a pantheon standing among the cherry blossoms. Jefferson, who so eloquently gave the middle finger to the British crown.

And the Korean War Veterans Memorial. Nineteen statues stand in remembrance of a war that received almost no media coverage compared to previous wars. And yet people forget that 5 million people died. It’s not too late to remember.

There’s old Abe. The “Great Emancipator” himself sits on his chair. A 170-ton statue, composed of 28 blocks of white Georgia marble, rising 30 feet high. “In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”

You have Martin Luther King Jr. standing in West Potomac Park. Among his many accomplishments, his humanitarianism and nonviolence, he is also a personal hero of mine for being a Southern Baptist minister who also shot pool.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It will break you.

The World War II Memorial. Lots of stone. Lots of bronze. The Greatest Generation is memorialized forever. And they ought to be. The way my grandfather described his generation: “We grew up during a Depression, then Uncle Sam rewarded us with a uniform and a one-way ticket to hell.”

Then you have the Washington Monument. A 555-foot obelisk.

You aren’t really prepared for this one. You think it’s just going to be a huge piece of rock. But it’s more than stone. This is a monument to honor a really unique man.

Modern historians have been less than kind to Washington. But that’s just a current trend in academia. People love to degrade heroes.

Still, if you talk to a true historian, you will find Washington to be an honorable, compassionate and decent human being. Perfect? No. Good? Yes.

He was quiet. Disarmingly polite. Unrealistically loyal. There were pockmarks on his face. His teeth were screwed up. He was self-taught at everything. He had no pedigree.

He repeatedly admitted he had no business being a statesman. And he meant it. He was less educated than Jefferson, less articulate than Adams, not as well-read as Madison or as clever as Hancock. And yet all these men considered him their superior.

Washington could have been king if he’d wanted. But all he wanted was to go back to Vernon and be a farmer.

And as July Fourth approaches, I think about General Washington. I think about what he fought for. I think about what it means to be an American in today’s world.

We are an infant nation. We aren’t even a toddler on the global stage. And yet our beauty exceeds us. But it’s not our purple mountain majesties, or our rocket’s red glare, or our bombs bursting in air. It is our people that make us so wonderful.

Our people, dammit.

It is your neighbor. It is the factory worker down the street who works doubles to pay for his son’s Little League uniform. It is the single mom who is attending community college while simultaneously trying to pay off the debt her ex-husband left behind. It is the inexplicable freedom to wear whatever T-shirt you want in public. America is you. It’s me. It’s this.

Am I proud to be an American? You bet. But I am even more humbled by this magnanimous privilege.

(Sean Dietrich is a columnist, humorist, multi-instrumentalist and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South. His column appears weekly in numerous newspapers throughout the U.S.)