'A Real and Generous Love of Our Country'

To be remembered for a statement taken out of context and often willfully misunderstood would have inspired Dr. Johnson’s “bow wow manner,” as Coleridge described the great man’s vehemence in argument. On April 7, 1775, Boswell quotes his friend as saying, “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Then he adds this customarily ignored caveat: “But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.” We all know the type. Human nature hasn’t changed much in 247 years.

 

A better gauge of Johnson’s understanding can be found in the first and fourth editions of his Dictionary. There he defines patriot like this: “One whose ruling passion is the love of his country.” In the fourth edition, he adds: “It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.” Factious he defines as “given to faction; loud and violent in a party; publickly dissensious; addicted to form parties and raise publick disturbances.” Sound familiar?

 

On Monday my family and I attended the Smith/McCool Award luncheon held by the Texas Gulf Coast Chapter of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association. At our table sat Michael Coats, USNA graduate, former astronaut and former director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston. The award is named for Michael Smith and William McCool, also USNA graduates and NASA astronauts, who died, respectively, in the Challenger and Columbia explosions. Our son Michael was this year’s recipient of the award named for them. Among midshipmen from the region he was judged to have displayed “the highest order of merit.”

 

Most of the luncheon’s attendees were USNA graduates. Between 1970 and 1972, Coats served on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk and flew 315 combat missions in Southeast Asia. The patriotism quotient in the room – heartfelt and unapologetic, without the taint of politics – was very high. Michael, who will be commissioned a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps in the spring, was presented with a ceremonial sword.