President Reagan, oh but we need you now

I knew this day was coming. I thought that because my hero. President Ronald Reagan, had been out of the public eye for years due to that terrible disease known as Alzheimer's his passing would somehow be easier.

I was wrong.

I was sitting at a baseball game in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when I got an email bulletin from Fox News announcing President Reagan's death. It took my breath away. My eyes misted up. I informed my 16 year old son and several people around us overheard.

One, my cousin, who I have rarely heard talk of politics, said something that hit me like a 90mph fastball: ÒWe'd have been better off if they just had made him king and kept him after his term was up.Ó

Reagan was my idol. I was fortunate enough to have been in the military during his administration. We used to call him Uncle Ron. We loved that man. We knew even then that he was something truly special, not just another president. We'd have marched through hell for Reagan.

When my second daughter was born the middle name we selected for her was Reagan.

Reagan was both ahead of his time and the right man at the right time in the right place. No one will ever be able to convince me he did not bring down the Iron Curtain.

But boy could we use him now. Right now America faces a foe every bit as formidable and perhaps even more evil than communism: Jihadism. This was a foe that Reagan only knew superficially through the prizm of the Cold War. He was certainly not perfect. Reagan let Iranian backed Jihadists kill and kidnap Americans all too often in the 1980s, without appropriate retaliation and that certainly contributed to the emboldened foes we face today. But the larger foe of the era was defeated because Reagan pursued communism with a persistance and clarity we have not seen since.

I feel certain that Reagan would deal similarly with the Jihadists today. While much of the nation today is bewildered largely by the current administration's inability to communicate a consistent vision on this war, my guess is Reagan would never have sanctioned the PC title of Òwar on terrorism.Ó

No, Reagan would point us to an enemy we could shoot at--and then he would give us the tools and personnel needed to defeat the foe.

All the while he would constantly remind us of why we were fighting with a moral clarity and sense of conviction that is sadly missing today.

Rest in peace President Reagan, but I sure wish you were here to lead us now.