[David McClure] We can be great again if we stop looking for supreme leader

It’s not about one person and it never was. I don’t care who that person is or was, it has always been of the people, for the people and by the people.

It is what our founding fathers had in mind when they penned the US Constitution. They knew then what we keep forgetting — that the greatness of this country was going to depend upon a village, not a chief.

So they carefully crafted a living document that would keep any one man or woman from destroying what so very many men and women have given their lives to build over the years. You see, it doesn’t matter how many wizards attempt to rule Oz, just as it doesn’t matter that the occasional “Once-ler” shows up full of steam and schemes about the “thneeds” that all of us need, even outside of a Dr. Seuss world.

You see, George Washington wasn’t alone in that rickety old wooden boat that crossed the Delaware that wintry day. He was surrounded by a few good men who were prepared to suffer greatly, willing to pay the ultimate cost. For you see, they believed that some things are worth sacrificing your very life for. Lincoln was a part of a team, as was Martin Luther King and the Dallas police officers who died on the 7th of July.

And while it is woefully true that this country is a shadow of what it used to be, all that is required for us to be “great again” is for all of us to stop looking for one supreme leader. That position was filled long ago. We need to rally around each other and rediscover the leader that lives within our own hearts. If you need someone to pattern yourself after while in pursuit of your inner leader, then I suggest you pick up a book or a laptop and read about the heroes that have come before us all.

The heroes I speak of were the brave souls who gave their lives in any of the wars abroad or the domestic wars waged against us as I write this. Check out the firefighters and police officers who went into the Twin Towers to save lives and never came back out again. Check out the “men of the light,” the brave missionaries in Japan who ran toward the mushroom cloud to save whoever they could.

I found a hero at the checkout stand at Wal-Mart one day. She was around 70. She worked 25 hours a week, then on a routine basis would take her paycheck and cheerfully hand it over to any of the dozens of poor people who work there. Some of the poorest people at Wal-Mart are behind the counters running registers.

Some leaders teach and some wear police uniforms, firefighter uniforms or volunteer uniforms at children’s hospitals in the cancer ward. We are so much more in America than any one person.

We are at our best when we are wearing our badges of brotherhood and coming together, side by side, shoulder to shoulder.

Dr. Seuss once wrote, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better, it’s not!” So many great people have died because they cared a whole awful lot about the United States of America. I will not forget them nor will I abandon them.

Like them, I will fight the good fight, won’t you join me?

David McClure is a teacher at Lakeview Centennial High School in Garland, Texas. --Ed.

(Tribune Content Agency)