America needs to get it’s spirit back

When I hear the cries of alarm over America's lack of unity during our current crisis, I am reminded of our country's plight some time ago when we faced a tyrannical foe - our mother country, Great Britain. Fully two-thirds of the citizens of the American colonies were either apathetic or in armed opposition to the revolution.

The embers of this country's birth were kept alight by 2,000 starving patriots whose bloody footprints stained the snow at the battle of Trenton on Christmas Day 1776. Let us not forget the words of Thomas Paine in his work “The Crisis,” in which he praised the Continental and Militia soldiers, whose sacrifice continues to this day in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American experience should have taught us by now that we still possess the spirit to come out of any “crisis” better than we went in to it. Let's go to work and get on with it.

Michael Dooley

Iowa City