I could have written that at age nine.
Given my posts over these many years, this may be difficult to believe, but I was exactly like him with respect to what he thought his country represented before I went to the Soviet Union. I believed this was the greatest country in the world, that we could do things no other nation would ever dare, that we were the only truly free nation on earth and all the rest. My neighbor across the street was an engineer who worked for NASA and would bring me materials from work on the Mercury and Gemini programs. He'd patiently explain everything he knew about rocketry and space travel to my five and six year old self. At age five I, like almost all my fellow five year old classmates, wanted to grow up and be President because the President was the greatest American alive. Despite my father teaching me about Russia and Marxism, I bought heavily into the anti-Communism pitched almost incessantly everywhere.
I was terrified the first time a Soviet boy about my age waved over to me and slipped behind a partition. I distinctly remember thinking, "Oh, God. This Communist kid is going to kick my Capitalist ass." When he instead led me through a maze only to a point where his friend and his younger brother were waiting with their entire, meager set of toys to give me, I had my first realization that what my country had taught me was utter bullshit. By the time I returned to the US, I'd come to the realization of what a complete and utter fraud my country was, precisely like the author of that letter.
In the end I cannot say whether recognizing the fraud of the USA at such an early age was a benefit or a burden. About the only thing of which I'm certain in this regard is that it does increase one's depression if one thinks on it much. Over that past 35 years my wife has, on a couple of occasions, said to me, "You don't know how to be happy." I recently reminded her of what she said and I asked her if she really believed that I'd never been happy. I asked about when the children were born and they were small. She agreed I'd been spectacularly happy then. But, she said, she couldn't remember many times I'd been truly happy since. When I asked her if she thought I'd been happy when we traveled abroad she said, "Oh yes. You're happy any time we've been out of the country." And that may well be the lesson here. Once you've seen through the smoke and mirrors and recognize the American People for who they really are, it may not be possible to ever be content in the fog again.
I was terrified the first time a Soviet boy about my age waved over to me and slipped behind a partition. I distinctly remember thinking, "Oh, God. This Communist kid is going to kick my Capitalist ass." When he instead led me through a maze only to a point where his friend and his younger brother were waiting with their entire, meager set of toys to give me, I had my first realization that what my country had taught me was utter bullshit. By the time I returned to the US, I'd come to the realization of what a complete and utter fraud my country was, precisely like the author of that letter.
In the end I cannot say whether recognizing the fraud of the USA at such an early age was a benefit or a burden. About the only thing of which I'm certain in this regard is that it does increase one's depression if one thinks on it much. Over that past 35 years my wife has, on a couple of occasions, said to me, "You don't know how to be happy." I recently reminded her of what she said and I asked her if she really believed that I'd never been happy. I asked about when the children were born and they were small. She agreed I'd been spectacularly happy then. But, she said, she couldn't remember many times I'd been truly happy since. When I asked her if she thought I'd been happy when we traveled abroad she said, "Oh yes. You're happy any time we've been out of the country." And that may well be the lesson here. Once you've seen through the smoke and mirrors and recognize the American People for who they really are, it may not be possible to ever be content in the fog again.