Monday, July 6, 2020
By:
This fourth of July, while traveling down the river that is my internship, I looked outside sometime around evening. The sun was setting. It was painting a rainbow of autumn colors across the sky. High up, yellow mingled with cerulean sky, interspersed with clouds, soon turning to orange then scarlet; until settling upon a deep blood red hue. You see, there is a lot of sitting involved in captaining my ship down this river; and I miss the exercise and feel of fresh air on my face. I was curious about how America would react to a "Fourth Of July (TM)" without any professional (and legal) display. Though it was only just past five in the afternoon, this was no tranquil moment however. For most of 2020’s summer nights, many Americans noticed the unseasonably early loud bangs and pops of fireworks. In the SF Bay Area and NYC, fireworks have been set off nightly until 2-3am since late-May. Across the country, a storm had been brewing for weeks, and had filled America with the roaring of waves crashing in our streets and the froth of bubbles being popped.
Standing outside, I knew this year was different from all others. Because no fireworks flew high enough to be seen on my horizon, I could only hear that hundreds were going off each minute. Even lulls had five to ten explosions every second. Other years were less voluminous and slowed before stopping as the big displays began. “Voluminous” is an intentional pun, while this year was over six hours of uninterrupted polyphonic chaos, only one boom or so every thirty minutes was as literally as loud as a professional one.
Because of these differences, rather than being reminded of July 4ths of years past, I was reminded of when I traveled to Israel in 2013-14 and visited an old army bunker at Mount Bental/Tal Al-Gharam less than four miles from the Syrian border. This was before the US intervention and Islamists, such as the Islamic State, were just beginning to make themselves known. Syria’s civil war at the time was nearing its peak. On July 4th 2020, the uncharacteristic cancelation of celebratory BBQs, lack of professional shows, and their replacement by the irregular but constant mayhem all around me sounded like the war I could hear from that bunker.
First, understand that the Syrian Civil War was made more real to my ears and eyes than any other. On the ascent to Mt. Bental, the tour guide pointed out live minefields which protect Israel from Syrian and Lebenese armor coming through the valley, as over 1,200 tanks had done in 1973. The Syrian armor offensive had been in the blitzkrieg-style that allowed Hitler to take down France in a matter of weeks. The valley was the site of one of the largest tank battles in history and a defeat would have meant the destruction of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Second, my readers should know that war movies, such as Black Hawk Down, Saving Private Ryan, Stalingrad, ect. have always been favorites of mine. I love the rush of adrenaline and testosterone—that masculine fascination and excitement with firepower and valient violent struggles—that I always feel while watching those movies, playing contact sports, or when I have gone shooting.
However, years ago surrounded by sandbags and standing on dirt Israelis and Syrians had died upon, I had an epiphany. It was the distinct realization that the sounds of automatic fire and high caliber shells I heard that day, were the bark of machine guns sending hot lead toward human beings with every intention to kill, and the explosions of +105mm shells from artillery or tanks were just echos of instant moments in time where men, women, and children, were shredded or simply vaporized. I had only come to Mt. Bental that morning, but Syrians had been listening to and dying to these sounds for well over a year, and they continue to this day. On the bus ride back, we could see Israeli armor (Merkava tanks) maneuvering in a field adjacent to the road. I remember realizing how I never saw military units practice maneuvers or anything upclose like this in the US; but in Israel, every 20th person or so that I saw was a soldier with an M-16 slung over their shoulder, and I saw F-16s fly overhead when visiting Masada. Israelis are both afraid and ferrociously prepared for the next invasion of their homeland, a threat to them as real in early October 1973 as it is in 2020.
So, this Saturday evening, I realized how incredibly thankful I am for living in the USA, and my American privilege. I know that there are areas in the US where murders spike around July 4th because fireworks mask shots of gunfire, I know not every American feels safe in their neighborhoods, and that too many fellow citizens do not even have home or food security. However, we live in an interconnected collection of states stretching the width of the entire continent. In fact, I dare write that we are a high functioning collection of fifty states, and other territories. Look, cynics may disagree about how functional our government is and chicken-littles may worry that presently we are on the brink of another civil war; but ask any political scientist and they will tell you: this union, both of states and of individual Americans, is bonded together stronger than even the Federalists who revised the Articles of the Confederation could have imagined. The great American experiment is an ongoing success, despite the many valid criticisms we may have.
Not every American went to sleep on Saturday safe and assured that the bursts of explosions they heard were not hot lead sent toward human beings with every intention to kill. There are real reasons that Chicago has gained the nickname Chiraq from residents. However, the American privilege we all share is that no one was worried that the loudest booms they heard were incoming artillery that could take down buildings and wipe out our families with no warning or escape. We take for granted that no one was worried about waking up the next morning to ISIS as the de-facto local government and Sharia law as the de jure law of the land. Canned food and toilet paper may have ran out in some places at Covid-19’s climax, but our food system is resilient and American supermarket shelves have never seen famine, as humans starve today in Yemen, Syria, etc.
This is why I am proud to be an American, and why I have aligned my education and career with public service over finding lucrative ways to “win” the most in our capitalistic economy. There are multiple multi-millionaires in every dictatorship, but only democracies have outspoken citizens with ideas to improve their government in said governments and not in prison cells. Yes, we are great because we won both world wars. Similarly, it is a testament to American greatness that we have an unprecedented global cultural-hegemony; through worldwide adoption of our language and currency, the popularity of our movies, television shows, and internet sites, and the respect the world has for our core ideals and historic beginnings. However, these are not what I thought about on July 4th nor what inspired me to study physics and political science. America is not great because our country can claim that we invented the lightbulb, personal computers and smartphones, first to carry out manned flight or land on the moon. Rather, America is great because it is a society, composed of cultures and laws, that allows free-thinking. From each thread free thought, we weave a rich tapestry of ideas, opinions, and perspectives. American greatness comes from those in power allowing this tapestry to grow freely without coercion or molestation. These thoughts and perspectives, like individual bubbles racing to the surface of the same river, coalescing into the rich and complex foam of public discourse, free speech which then challenges the status quo. In turn, this free speech and discourse leads to the ingenuity and innovation that pedestrian arguments too often provide as primary evidence of American greatness. It is my personal opinion that the colonists' rebellion against their own king, the sovereign of the world's top superpower, challenged the status quo just as much as the atom bomb, the Wright brothers, or NASA’s Apollo program. I say this despite my preeminent love of technology and science: from the deterministic perspective, the American fight for independence supersedes all other accomplishments that we as Americans take pride in.
My patriotism comes from the same mental and spiritual place inside me that makes me proud of myself. I am proud to be a John Mather Policy Fellow, because we have scientists like Dr. Mather who was funded by public monies, whose research broke the status quo, and who was celebrated for doing so. As a Jew, I know enough history to see the stark contrast to how Einstein and “Jewish physics” was outlawed in Nazi Germany with the help of German Nobel laureat Johannes Stark. I share the same pride as my supervisors in Berkeley and Gaithersburg, for the work we do to advance America forward in the 21st century. I am proud to be a policy fellow at NIST’s Advanced Manufacturing Program Office and a scientific research affiliate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (the lab which was instrumental in Dr. Mather’s discovery) because I can share my ideas and thoughts with my colleagues, and can even use social media to express criticisms of the system and status quo, without worrying about a Stasi/KGB-like secret police taking me in for interrogation and being permanently “disappeared” afterward. I have met and talked with Americans who emigrated from countries where this was a terrifying reality. I am proud of myself for believing that others deserve the right to freedom of expression and to feel the state's common defence personally ensures security for themselves and their loved ones.
What makes me proudest is that I am a young man who, to the core of my being, values team players and those who take time to think about their fellow countrywoman and countryman. Our republic is only made weaker when selfish bottom-feeders slither their way into governance over their better fellows, and is strongest when filled with leaders such as George Washingon who rejected a royal title and selflessly reliquished power so others could lead the new republic. So, even if my first consideration was how my family was safe, I take pride in the fact that this fourth of July I thought about and prayed for other American's to feel safe that night; rather than merely being content with my own suburban security. This consciousness of others' suffering, the self-reflection of my place in the world, and an awareness that I can join the team that's helping to fix the problem, is why I love my internship. I am very lucky to have very real work assigned by supervisors who see the world similarly. I would like to look back on my life and know that I helped my neighboor, served my country, and ultimately made the world a better place for the human race; that I moved the line of scrimmage forward just a little bit because I volunteered to pick up the ball and move it forward. America, despite our dogma of rugged individualism, plays as a team on the world stage. We win or lose together as a country. We thrive or go extinct as a race.
I thought back to that bunker in northern Israel. You see, bellow Mt. Bental is a place known as the Valley of Tears. It was given this name because of the battle between Syrian and Israeli forces during the Yom Kippur war. After the 4th day of battle, approximately 260 tanks lay destroyed in the valley. The primary Israeli defence force unit, an armored brigade that started with 105-170 tanks, was whittled down to just seven tanks and a fraction of its command structure. Multiple Israeli commanders died with their enlisted soldiers, some tanks holding the valley literally to their very last round. Ultimately, the Syrians who lost around 250-400 tanks, with another +100 vehicles destroyed, retreated. The Israeli soldiers deployed along that boarder facing 1:5 odds held their ground because their families, homes, and the entire country, were a few hours and one military defeat away from complete genocide. Similarly, pro-democracy rebels knowingly fought against ISIS but also Syria and Russia. I remember thinking if they or the Kurds succeeded in their fights for independence, that history would record it as a patriotic revolutionary war, and that if Assad won, their history books would instead describe a civil war between loyalists and terrorists. I remember back in Israel when I had the multifacited epiphany: that men had died 40 years ago on the ground I now stood, but at the very same moment, I was listening to a very active and real war at the doorsteps of this country, and yet still, also acutely aware that I would never hear these noises of death and destruction again back in America.
This is the context behind my fourth of July, where the red of the sun bled and white foam bubbled up, both merging with the blue sky and rushing river of time I have chronical for you. As the air was filled by the cacophonic menagerie, my nosed saturated with saltpeter and sulfur kissing fire and oxygen, I thought about how I knew that I was not hearing guns or other instruments of murder, but I also thought about “Chiraq” and the abysmal reality for too many Americans: that we the people of the United States have failed to insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, or promote the general welfare in all our neighboorhoods. I thought neighboors and friends, about how I wasn’t holding a beer at a BBQ, nor was I in Maryland living out an amazing post-graduation summer with my fellow AIP interns; and how I feel duty-bound to protect my at-risk family members from Covid-19. I thought about if and why I considered my summer work as service to my country. I would consider my life well lived serving our national shared noble enterprise. It should be no surprise then that I am doing so this summer, with both patriotism and personal pride. Most of all, on this fourth of July, I remembered that a part of American privilege is knowing our towns and cities will not be reduced to rubble, that American citizens are not at risk to become war-refugees, and that we live in a stable country where we can continue building homes, families, and innovations that help make the world a better place.
“Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind, let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance, as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonising spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others; and should divide opinions as to measures of safety; but every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle.
We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans: we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it. I know indeed that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong; that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear, that this government, the world’s best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one, where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.—Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels, in the form of kings, to govern him? Let history answer this question.”
—Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 4 March. 1801
(other citation: Picture provided by Mr. Eitan, https://www.rabbieitan.com/mt-bental-the-valley-of-tears-and-israel-syria-border/, accessed 7/5/20)
Max Dornfest