Thank you, John.

 

Captain Parker,

I know you’re long since in the grave.  Nevertheless, I want to thank you for that crazy, defiant, insane act of pointless resistance you committed all those years ago.  I want to thank you for standing in defiance of the most powerful military force known to man alone with so few of your townsmen.  That act alone, that resistance, likely was enough in itself to see you arrested, your life destroyed.  You had to know you didn’t stand a chance against British bayonets and musketry, and you couldn’t have possibly known what would soon transpire because of the pure steel you displayed that day.  You stood, sick with the illness that would bring you to death, staring down the British Empire, and you and your men did not falter.  How fast and hard your heart must have beat.  How sweaty your palms, how dry your mouth as you showed a defiant and brave front to the enemy and to your men.

And could you have known?  You and your men stood, knowing the steel that was in front of you was poised to crush you.  Could you have known what would happen after your stand?  Would you be crushed and abandoned by your countrymen after your stand?  Would it be in vain?  Would your former friends and militiamen scurry to be distanced from your memory?  Would your wives hate you for standing and dying for this one thing, this concept, this freedom?  Could you have known?  You couldn’t have.  Some things just have to be done, even if you just don’t know.

Did you know that day how many would come to your aid?  Did you know that you would send the British, your own countrymen, into a rout, bloodied and dying?  Did you ever dream in the years before that it would come to this?  Did you hold out hope, until that last second, that things would change?

What made you stand?  What made you defy law and order, king and country, what made you so enraged and galvanized that finally you said, “no more”, and stood?  What made you finally stand and take aim at the uniform you once wore?  You were no stranger to the hell of war; yet you left your farm and job behind to lay your life down as a sacrifice.  What made you leave your wife and home, sick and dying, to stand for this thing no one could touch, this idea?  What did your wife Lydia think?  She knew, didn’t she, even before you picked up your gun.  She knew what you would do; it was part of who you were.  Perhaps she knew before you did.  You couldn’t not do what you did.

Then they came.  After the alerts and alarms of the night before, there they were, suddenly already within the town.  There they were.  So close.  That’s how it always is though, isn’t it?  All the ideas, the bantering, the theorizing, the decisions, they all came to a halt in that second, and it was too late to think, to decide, to debate.  There they were.  As you watched, the scene devolved and grew tense.  You knew what was coming, it was inevitable.  Your words calmed and steeled the men, letting them stand.  You knew what was coming.  They were boys, and men from all walks of life; you had been a man of war.  Was it a game to them up until the red columns appeared?  You knew though, didn't you.  But just for a second, toward the end, did you think and hold out hope that it would not explode?  Did you hope and pray the inevitable would not come?

Then it came.  

You saw the rising sun glistening off the dew in the grass, you heard the morning birds singing as if nothing was amiss.  You might have noticed the clouds above, or the familiar sights and smells of the town in that moment, that moment that is before, when all your senses explode and bring the earth into infinite focus, an awareness that has to be experienced to be known.  The moment before violence.  In that moment, you knew.

Then it came.

Did you hear the shot heard ‘round the world?  Was it loud and clear, or were your senses overwhelmed in that chaotic second when the world erupted into flame and fire, and the world began to turn upside down?  All the fear and trepidation of the day, all the anxiety, released finally in a cataclysmic blast that changed everything.  You watched as your men were shot down, unable to stop it all, or help at all.  You watched as your cousin was impaled on the bayonet of a countryman, slain with cold British steel.

After it all, when the quiet came, interrupted only by the moans of the dying, when the victorious “huzzahs” to the king faded and the marching columns left, you could have walked away. 

You did not.

You could have walked away once again to rest in the arms of your wife, sick with the disease that would be your end.

You did not.

You could have gone back to your Lydia and lived the remainder of it well.

Why not, Captain Parker?  Why not, John?

You gathered those who were left, and you did not run from the army that crushed you, no, instead you pursued it and claimed your Parker’s Revenge.

You came.  You stood.  You led.You returned.  

You won.

You knew that, didn’t you?  Or did you? You died before the war was over, from the affliction that plagued you that day, all those years ago. But that day, and forever, you won.

I want to thank you John, for what you did.  For standing against your countrymen, for leading you men as you did, for taking the flame and fire and musketry.  I want to thank you as well for coming back.  For coming back and repaying hell with hell.  For coming back and fighting, yes, for slaying your countrymen, although from the moment the shots were fired, they were forevermore not your countrymen.

I want to ask something else of you.  What of us?  

You fought for something you could not touch, something you could not see, something you would never see. 

This idea, this thing, this liberty.  

You would never know it, yet you fought.  

We have it, yet let it be taken away with nary a fight.

I have it, yet I let it be taken away with nary a fight.

John, for this I am sorry.  Forgive me.

You know though, don’t you?  Lydia as well, re-united with you in death, knows, doesn’t she?

You know.

Your blood courses in our veins.

It is starting to boil, isn't it?

Some time, a little here, a little there, and history will repeat.  From tyranny to freedom, to complacency, to subjugation, to tyranny.

You know, don’t you?

Your blood and that of your men, it lives on, diluted though, over the years.  It now boils within us, concentrating, collecting, becoming potent once again.  

Only fools ignore the lessons of history.  Only fools think that present is all, is everything, is reality, when reality is really so much more.

Is our time coming?  Can you see it?  When do we stand? 

Are we Americans, or are we, in an ironic twist of fate, more like the British, obedient and complacent, happy in servitude?  Will we finally stand or will we continue to squander your stand, your sacrifice, and your cousin's blood?

I don’t know.

You do though, don’t you John? 

Well, it’s late now, near the time you heard the summons that early fateful morning.

That morning you stood.

I pray that I may stand, whether in peace, or in strife.  Because, if I stand, like you, no matter what...

I've won.

Like you.

Thank you, John.