Except America was an idea. And ideas very seldom vanish.
Whenever he despaired, he reminded himself of this.
With his bags set by the front door, he stepped into his study, which had once been his uncle’s study, the very room where he’d learned of the attacks on Galveston and San Diego. At the corner of the desk sat a photograph of his great-great-grandfather, Lance Naik Imran Sandeep Patel of the Rajputana Rifles. This wasn’t the photo from the Delhi Gymkhana that his uncle had shown him years before, but a photograph from later on in his great-great-grandfather’s life, after his career in the army, once he’d made a modest fortune selling arms during Partition to the newly formed Indian government. Although the forty years between photographs had obscured the resemblance of the young and old versions of the same man, the gaze was unmistakable. It was unrequited, hungry for more — to do more, achieve more, to make a better, safer, more secure, more dignified life. It was, in Chowdhury’s estimation, a distinctly American gaze, though the man had never set foot in America.
When he considered his great-great-grandfather, and considered Reagan and Kennedy — who felt like grandfathers of another sort — and their shared vision of “the city upon a hill,” he felt assured by the notion that America, as an idea, did not depend upon any particular set of borders to endure. In fact, on this UN-sponsored humanitarian trip, he would be doing his part to restore American ideals to its very shores.
Outside, his taxi pulled up. Chowdhury messaged the driver to wait a minute. Another idea rang discordantly in his mind, an idea from another of America’s forefathers. These were words spoken by a young Abraham Lincoln two decades before the calamity that became the American Civil War. All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, Lincoln had said, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years…. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.
A nation of freemen.
Chowdhury counted himself among that nation, no matter where it might exist, in Washington, New Delhi, or elsewhere. And so he would travel back to America, hopeful that the spirit of that nation had yet to abandon the place. He had one last item to pack. Opening his desk drawer, he reached for his two passports: Indian and American, different shades of the same blue.
His hand hovered indecisively over them both. He had a flight to catch. Time was growing short. The taxi began to blare its horn. He stood, the seconds bleeding away. For the life of him, he couldn’t decide which to choose.
Epigraph
“Because no battle is ever won…. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.”
Acknowledgments
Elliot Ackerman would like to thank Scott Moyers, Mia Council, PJ Mark, and, as ever, Lea Carpenter.
James Stavridis would like to thank Andrew Wylie, Captain Bill Harlow, Scott Moyers, Mia Council, and the Fleet’s best spouse, Laura Stavridis.
About the Author
Admiral Jim Stavridis, USN (Ret.) spent more than thirty years in the US Navy, rising to the rank of four-star admiral. He was Supreme Allied Commander at NATO and previously commanded US Southern Command, overseeing military operations through Latin America. At sea, he commanded a Navy destroyer, a destroyer squadron, and an aircraft carrier battle group in combat. He holds a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he recently served five years as dean. He has published nine previous books. Admiral Stavridis is Chief International Security and Diplomacy Analyst for NBC News, and a columnist at both Time magazine and Bloomberg Opinion. Based in Washington, D.C., he is an operating executive of the Carlyle Group, an international private equity firm.
Elliot Ackerman is the author of the novels Red Dress In Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, as well as the memoir Places and Names: On War, Revolution and Returning. His books have been nominated for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal in both fiction and non-fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He is both a former White House Fellow and Marine, and served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart.