I spend a lot of time teaching social studies teachers around the country better ways to teach American history. (No, Dana, I don't spend my time trying to convince them to vote Libertarian.) One of the issues I deal with all the time is the false dissonance we create for students between then and now . Specifically, I'm talking about self-interest and dis-interest in our political leaders. We see Bill and Hillary, Dubya, McCain, Obama, and all other high-level politicians presented in terms of their own self-interest. Dubya invaded Iraq for oil, right? So his oil-invested, Saudi-loving family could profit when gas prices went up.... We assume today that all politicians are bought and paid for, until they prove otherwise. But we too often teach that the Founders, or great 19th Century politicians like Henry Clay or Abraham Lincoln were passionate, unselfish patriots who sacrificed their own self-interest for the greater good. I'm not--like Dana does when he wants to get ...

Unfortunately, politics doesn't get suspended on Memorial Day, but that is what it is. Here's what Memorial Day means to me, as an American citizen and as a former Medic in the US Army: the story of PFC Desmond Doss at Okinawa. Doss pass away two years ago; this is taken from his extended obituary on the Adventist News Network : Desmond T. Doss, Sr., who braved ridicule to serve in World War II as a U.S. Army medic without carrying a gun, and who labored on a Sabbath, May 5, 1945, to rescue 75 wounded soldiers pinned down by enemy gunfire on the island of Okinawa, died March 23 at his residence in Piedmont, Alabama. Doss, the only conscientious objector to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor during World War II, was 87 years of age. Desmond T. Doss, Sr., who braved ridicule to serve in World War II as a U.S. Army medic without carrying a gun, and who labored on a Sabbath, May 5, 1945, to rescue 75 wounded soldiers pinned down by enemy gunfire on the island of Okinawa, di...