Writes Tim McGraw:

Hi Lew,  The Man Without a Country

I remember having this short story shoved down our young minds in the third grade at Blessed Sacrament School in Lincoln, Nebraska. I thought the story was bullshit then, and I still do. It’s a very strong propaganda story, though. I still remember it. The lay teacher, Mrs. Baker, was very patriotic. She is also the one who gave me an F on a book report I wrote about Woodrow Wilson. I was in third grade. She gave me a book to read, and the author stated that Wilson had brought the USA into WWI. Wilson was a bigot who segregated the Armed Forces, arrested suffragettes, and force-fed them in prison. Wilson arrested anyone who protested against American involvement in WWI. This is what the author of the book wrote. I just wrote down what he wrote and got an “F.”

Then came “The Man Without a Country” story. I raised questions about it, like, “Why didn’t the government send him to Mexico or some other country? Why go to the expense of keeping him on those ships all those years? What if Aaron Burr had defeated Jefferson by one vote?” Mrs. Baker didn’t like my questions. Many years later, I read about the Irish artillery battalion that deserted the American Army and fought for Mexico in 1848 when President Polk invaded Mexico for a land grab. Many of the Irish deserters, the San Patricios,  were caught and hung from the ramparts of a captured Mexican fort. But the leader of the San Patricios was an Irish immigrant. He wasn’t an American citizen, so he couldn’t be accused of treason. The Army branded him with a “D” on his face and sent him into the desert on foot. No one knows what happened to him.

Now I’m 72 years old. Not much has changed.