Over the course of my life, I have run 12 marathons. Each was different, hard, and good. Each required training. Each made me walk backward up staircases for a week, calves on fire, from a different planet. But I was glad for each. They taught me to enjoy what is hard and never give up.
Some days, I awake, look at the world, and it seems like another marathon. Happy as I am that our national leaders are taking steps in the right direction, and on pace for change, we have miles to go.
Internationally, we have wars to end and potential wars to avert. We have new, technically savvy adversaries, and allies who do not seem to appreciate history, deterrence, and our role in both.
Nationally, we have – where do we begin? – a desperate need to restore trust in government, after so much miscarriage, misuse, and abuse of power, misapplication of laws for political gain, public corruption, attempts to suppress rights from speech, worship, and self-defense to the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment guarantees of safety in our own homes, due process, equal protection, fair trial.
In the realm of public safety, we have suffered so much disinformation one wonders if we can ever feel confident again, safe in a world where illegal aliens, felons, and drug traffickers poured over our borders like spring flood waters over the local dam.
Where things get personal, in towns and families, we have witnessed betrayal, an unthinkable rise in drug trafficking, addiction, and overdoses, all creating radiating circles of pain. Sitting with families who have lost children, there are no words. With kids fighting fentanyl, the climb out is steep.
On basic day-to-day issues, the costs of housing, heat if you own a home, prescriptions, food, the commute, interest on credit cards, and even the cost of eggs have leaped so high it is hard to imagine.
We have seen abuse at the top of government agencies, Justice, FBI and FISA, State, USAID, Defense, Treasury, IRS, HHS, EPA … and closer to home in state government. It is hard to find an agency free of abuse. Even FBI statistics were gamed by Democrat states to help politicians.
On cultural distortion, we have seen avowed Marxists and class warfare pushers grab causes and run, spinning up the young, getting in our schools, justifying hate, jealousy, envy, abandonment of learning, science, and faith in favor of blame, excuse, entitlement, and irresponsibility.
We see culture warriors pushing nonsense better described as evil, catering to kids’ worst instincts, pretending they can redefine their own sex, and even taking kids away from parents to operate on them.
We see truth boldly presented untrue, untruth as true, life’s value disparaged, young spirits broken and demoralized, as we watched our leaders lie, take money from foreign countries, trade stocks on inside knowledge, then give pardons to friends and family for crimes without limit.
We have seen our Constitution misunderstood, and intentionally undermined, and the Supreme Court, respect for the law’s limits, law enforcement officers, religious leaders, and families kicked to the side.
All this we have endured – and more. Instead of teaching kids to focus, set goals, achieve, and feel accomplishment based on knowing skills, how to think critically, separate assumptions from facts, and use their moral compass – which reinforces self-respect – those in charge have done the reverse.
As a result, we watch kids struggle, their focus slips and distractions grow until swallowing their ability to concentrate and learn what needs learning. Rather than confidence and calm learned by doing hard things, and problem-solving, they are racked – especially girls – by anxiety, and hysteria created by adults.
Rather than teaching logic, rational thinking, and hard skills, the trades, math, science, reading, writing, and patience to run life’s marathon with heart, grownups often default to irresponsibility. They model fear, overemotionalism, excuses, crazy spending, taxing, blaming, and hysteria.
That is not leadership, not how you train kids to run life’s marathon, and not how we run it well. We need to teach them – ourselves again – that what is hard is good. Work is good, service is good, faith is good, and learning is good. America and our American Dream are good, not an accident. Marathons can be hard, but they are also good. They teach us to enjoy what is hard, and never give up.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
Excellent article on the perspective of how one should view life in general. Concentrate on the long-term goal and find ways to navigate around any obstacles you encounter along the way. All too often, most people only focus on the immediate without regard to any long-term vision or goal. Life requires that long-term perspective in order to achieve success, so that one can deal with the inevitable bumps in the road that occur along the way.
From the political perspective, virtually all the negatives you listed in your article can be traced back, in one way or another, to the Democrat Party and its socialist policies throughout the last 100 plus years. First, they create a problem via bad policy and then of course, when the public feels real pain as a result, they propose a solution, which of course entails more bad policies, which do NOT fix the original problem, but rather just institutionalize it as a means to expand their power and control.
The United States has been in this push-pull environment between American capitalism and so-called Democrat progressivism (Marxism) since the Wilsonian era. Successive periods of further progressive expansion of the federal government under the likes of FDR, LBJ, Carter, Clinton, and Obama / Biden have only served to increase the size and scope of the federal government and the amount of pain the average American has to endure. So, more bumps in the road that we have to navigate around on our marathon.
Now we are in hopefully a corrective period under President Trump. Assuming Congress will do their part and not be sabotaged by certain members of Congress, that are content with the status quo. Keeping the pressure up on the Republican members of Congress, that are content to sell out the country for their own gain, is of course something all Americans need to do to help us continue along our marathon successfully. Again, excellent article.
I will never be as naive to trust government as I once did in my youth. I trust God. He of course places kings on thrones and removes them at His will.
Thank you RBC for another excellent article. I was raised on a farm and knew hard work from the time I was old enough to help with the chores and work in the fields. Each morning we got up early, did our chores and got ready to go to school after eating the delicious breakfast Mom always cooked. By today’s standards we were poor, but we didn’t know it, because we had all we needed on the farm and Mom made sure we had plenty to eat and clothes to wear, for 7 boys no less. On Sunday mornings, Dad would trim our hair and then we would get ready to go to Sunday school and church services, because this was important in our family. We never forgot the important things we learned on the farm as we grew up and ventured out into the work world to make a living for our families. I regret that so many of our young people today have not learned the values of hard work, responsibility, moral virtues, and allegiance to a merciful, yet judgmental, God.
Yes, life is a marathon, but for years we were told not to worry,we do it all for you, trust us. No good, time to put the runners on our kids and start training them for the facts of life if they are to survive on their own, not let them be bamboozled into believing they are poor and deserve help, victims of injustice, that is a killer of the spirit.
Adapt, improvise and overcome. Love truth and hate lies.
Congrats on 12 marathons! How about the guy who ran 7 on 7 continents in 7 days. Unreal!