If you have ever looked at a penny from 1943, you will notice that there is something different about it than almost any other penny you have seen. No, Abe Lincoln isn’t winking. Still, there is something special about a penny from that year. As soon as you glance at a 1943 penny, you will notice a remarkable difference: it isn’t copper colored. That is because pennies from 1943 were made out of steel (except for what is believed to be about 40 copper ones that were minted by accident). What sets them apart though, is not only that they are made of a different metal but rather the reason behind this drastic change.
During World War II, copper and nickel were needed for the war effort, so the penny had to change. Every time I see one of these coins, I can’t help but think about what it must have been like to see it for the first time back when the bombs were falling over Europe. Surely, it was a symbol that signified unity, sacrifice and even patriotism.
Where, I ask, is this now? Today so much has changed. We are far removed from the battlefield. We cannot identify with our armed forces beyond knowing they are fighting under the same banner which is saluted half-heartedly. Our leaders, dare we call them such, cannot identify with the army any more than we can. Many of them have never seen combat, that is, if they had been enlisted at all.
The armed forces have increasingly become the last resort road taken for the wrong reasons. When I see the reports and pictures of the dead and wounded coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan, I see the faces of minorities from urban areas, or whites from the mid west. I see the faces of my peers, men my age, coming home in boxes from a place they never should have gone to. When I see this, I can’t help but wonder what happened to that spirit of 1943. What happened to the collective patriotism that meant giving something up for the war effort? Today that spirit is missing. Replacing it, however, is a perverse form of patriotism that is displaying Old Glory in front of your house.
What we need today is to resurrect that spirit of steel pennies. Not by placing national colors on our lawns, pick-up trucks and tattoos, but rather by becoming involved in our nation’s affairs. How can anyone bear to sit and watch the news of their nation’s children dying in a place they were sent to fight by leaders who do not know what it’s like to face a bullet? And worse still, not only has this gone unquestioned, but people wave their flags, displaying their banal nationalism. How are we to explain that America has become a nation of followers, a nation silenced and a nation of flag wavers?
We have no just explanation for this, because there isn’t one. Our patriotism now must become civic engagement and activity within public political discourse. Our patriots must become those who stand up for the values and rights that have recently vanished. Our leaders can no longer be draft-dodging warmongers.
Let’s think about that for a moment. The current administration is lead by Chickenhawks, that is war mongrels who “had other priorities in the ’60s than military service,” as Dick Cheney said, than fighting in Vietnam. Thanks a lot, Dick!
Still, it is these personalities that are the most eager to send our troops into battle. Cheney, George W. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Tom Delay and Trent Lott are just a few of the Chickenhawks that vociferously advocated the war on Iraq. They are not over there fighting, and I can guarantee you that their children are not either. What were they doing in the ’60s? Maybe they had desk jobs at the Ministry of Truth, conjuring up ideas while loading up on freedom fries and victory gin? The bottom line is they were not fighting with the rest of America.
I am not arguing that Vietnam should have been supported; I’m not arguing that we should send more troops to Iraq. What I am arguing is that there is a great degree of hypocrisy in the actions of these Chickenhawks, and this force is left unchecked. Civic engagement is dead, and it is your job, your duty as a patriot, to get up and say something. It is your job to become involved. Put the flag that you’re meaninglessly waving down for a moment and go find out what it stands for.
That is what we can do now to chip in to the effort. The effort, that is, is constantly making this nation a better place, and that is not going to happen if we allow hypocrites to lead underprivileged youngsters into faraway battlefields when the change needs to happen here.
Maybe you will not see a steel penny, but still we must work to bring the spirit of those pennies, the spirit of civic engagement, back into our culture. Or else we shall all attend the funeral of the American Dream.
Yousef Munayyer is a Collegian columnist.
