I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what it means to be an American. I currently find myself reading a war novel for the first time since I was in the 10th grade. The novel is Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson. Tree of Smoke is a narration of the Vietnam War meant to emulate what it was like to actually be in Vietnam.

Throughout the book, there are these momentary instances of picturesque America — a sun setting over a mountain as a young man goes to volunteer for the war. What struck me most is a scene where a large American flag on Vietnamese soil inspired the soldiers with nostalgic memories and fervent love for their country.

The closest connection I can find to this in my own life is the large American flag that I see daily as I drive on the northern section of Interstate 440. However, this large flag doesn’t inspire the same feelings in me. All I ever feel when I see it is either nothing or the occasional fleeting nostalgia for the pure ideals I once thought we stood for. I don’t recall apple pie, baseball or even emotional investment in a foreign war.

Upon the festering of these thoughts, last Thursday a professor asked me why it was that so many Americans no longer felt a strong sense of national identity. I am not entirely sure why I don’t have this feeling of devotion for my country anymore. It is the freedoms we have in this country that allow me to write a column of this nature, as well as choose my own religion, ethics and degree of patriotism.

Surely I can’t be alone in this loss of national identity. In 2004, we found it amazing when a mere 60 percent of voting Americans turned out to vote for our next leader. It strikes me that 40 percent of a country would be so indifferent as to not even play a part in the selection of their next leader.

To answer the question posed to me by my professor, I think that we have lost our national identity as individuals tied to the whole because we have lost our sense as a whole. The sects in our country have grown out of control. Liberals hate conservatives and vice-versa. We fight about everything from economic recession to foreign war policy and even who should be allowed to marry.

Now every time I drive by that large flag on 440 I find myself faced with the question of what it will take to make me really feel American again. Will a new president do the trick? I don’t think so. How about an end to the war in Iraq? Again, I don’t think so. Ultimately, it is going to require a paradigm shift: an entirely new way of seeing our country on the world scale, no longer as a great enforcer, but rather as something new, something I can be proud of. What will that new role be, and will it do the trick? I’m not sure, but hopefully, it will.

Do you feel like you’ve lost your sense of national identity? Let Joe know at [email protected]