Military service puts new perspective on race relations

My first day at basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C., was a monumental one in my life.  I saw more black folks in two hours than I had seen in my previous 20 years. 
I quickly realized that they were just people like me.  Some slower, or faster, stronger or weaker.  Sure they said things that I did not understand like “wearing drawers,” but my fanciful verbage probably slowed them down as well.
This was a life experience that I don’t tend to share with others, I just learned from it.  Frankly, I understand that saying “black folks” might be upsetting to some people. 
Just like all the trouble that is brewing now in Georgia and the NAACP.  Some unfortunate woman (Shirley Sherrod) got up and talked about an incident that happened in her past.  How this has been framed in the news since is up for debate. 
However, the point is that we all need to have the audacity to hope to move beyond race.
When I talk about the commander in chief I do not say the Black President any more than I said the White President before him.  When I was a soldier, my leaders and superiors were addressed and spoken about by name and title, not color or country of origin.  I feel I have much more in common with Martin Luther King’s views today than the majority of those who make policy and report on a policy. 
Well who am I talking about?  The government and the media, of course: they are both doing more to stir up race and race baiting than George Wallace could ever have dreamed about.
Just this week a friend of mine who lives in the state of Vermont called me in a very agitated state, concerned about this incident and others like it. “They are driving us towards another Civil War,” he said.
He was referring to the NAACP and other groups that, as I have said, seem to be picking at the scab of racism. But even his position in Vermont is misinformed it gives the impression that the Civil War was about race.
As we Texans realize, it was about states’ rights and the right to be free from federal intrusion. Obamacare, anyone?
We need to do a better job of judging one another by the content of our character.  If you are concerned about how your children are viewing race relations in this current time encourage them to join the military — any branch will do. 
Ask them to follow orders from someone who has a different pigment in their skin, someone who worships differently than them.
In these troubled times they will learn why the flag has red in it.  To show the world the blood we shed.  Not for ourselves but for others so that they may know freedom they way that we are supposed to know it and practice it here in America.  It looks like we need to keep practicing though.