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People often ask me what it means to be an American. I tell 'em it's triumph. Triumph. Triumph when we nuke our enemies. Triumph when our flag flutters in the wind on the moon. Triumph when we peer down from the moon and laugh heartily at Russia. Triumph when we depose one dictator after another. Triumph when we break into the homes of terrorist kingpins on the other side of Earth and shoot them in the face. Triumph when we use flying robots to bomb other terrorists in Afghanistan. Triumph when we were the main reason the Nazis were defeated in WWII. Triumph when we freed Europe twice. Triumph. Triumph. Triumph. But it's not just the the big things, see? It's the way I can set up lawn chairs at my friends house on the Texas Rio Grande and share a toast to freedom while watching Mexicans charge into gunfire to enter my country. It's the way an Italian cabbie sits up straight and floors the gas when he hears my accent. It's seeing the wide eyes and bead of sweat running down the forehead of a German customs agent when he opens my passport. It's the way a French waiter hangs his head when I refuse the wine and ask for Coke instead, in English knowing full well he understands me (and that they have it). The way an Aussie blushes and leans into the urinal next to me in the bathroom, or the scowl that meets my smirk when I tip an English waiter in US dollars covered with Washington's face. The way small mobs of Canadian school children follow me from a distance to see what a free man looks like, or how heads timidly rise and women gather when my accent stops the music in the clubs of Amsterdam. Triumph. Every bit of it, triumph. That's what it means to be an American.
