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Arizona State Winner

James Fox
Gold Canyon, AZ
Fox Home School
Home School
12th Grade

An unshaven man sits, huddled in a cramped hole, hidden by a rug. He hears muffled voices coming from above. While the voices draw closer, he asks himself, "Who do these people think they are?" All of a sudden, his hiding place is discovered and he is captured! His name is Saddam Hussein, and he will not soon forget those men, who, on a Saturday morning in 2003, offered him a lesson in American virtue. By seizing a cruel tyrant, those Americans acted courageously in defense of both innocent Iraqis and their fellow countrymen.

The only way to preserve American freedom is to seek what is good and shun what is evil. Abraham Lincoln said, "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." That is why I believe living righteously is essential to being an American.

Virtue means helping those in need, defending the innocent and living a moral life. The ancient Greeks taught that virtue means to fulfill your purpose in life. Hence, the eye is virtuous when it sees and the carpenter is virtuous when he makes chairs. Likewise, the government is virtuous when it takes care of its citizens; the soldier is virtuous when he defends his country, and the citizen is virtuous when he is patriotic.

One of the most unforgettable examples of American virtue took place on the morning of September 11, 2001. The World Trade Center was demolished beyond recognition by two hijacked airplanes. Before the two towers collapsed, American firemen risked there lives by entering perilously unsound buildings to save those who were inside. The place where the famous structure once stood may seem like a hole in the cityscape of New York, but the reaction of those brave men demonstrated the true sense of what it means to be an American.

One of my favorite American presidents, Ronald Reagan, worked tirelessly to bring freedom to the mistreated citizens of Eastern Europe, who were stuck behind the Iron Curtain. He defended America from the evil Soviet Empire by rebuilding our denuded military because, as Reagan put it, "If you were going to approach the Russians with a dove of peace in one hand, you had to have a sword in the other." The world is a better place because Reagan displayed the virtue of courage, and ended the fear of Soviet nuclear attack, which had plagued America for decades.

Early in America's history, there was a man who fought to extend the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to all Americans regardless of race or color. His name was Abraham Lincoln and he was America's sixteenth president. He turned the war for the preservation of the Union into an opportunity to grant freedom to all the Negro slaves, and paid for this cause with his life.

To be an American means to live virtuously. Benjamin Franklin put it this way, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." My hope for the future is that Americans will live virtuously like Lincoln, Reagan, the firemen of September 11th and the soldiers in Iraq because only then will America endure as a great nation.