The Noble Carolinians, A Walk to Remember

All of the South is special to me, my restless soul unexplainably and mercifully satisfied in a peacefulness that is almost mystical, transformed at the exact moment I am present within her borders. Yet, it is South Carolina that calls to me like no other place. I am convinced that I am one with her, just as I am with my wife. My ancestral blood runs through Carolina, the same as her rivers and streams run through her soil. The wind blowing through her pines is the air that fills my lungs, and the ocean breeze from deep in the Low Country always takes my breath away. When I am there, I am home, and for the better part of a week, I was home. I was walking through the Low Country again, as if I had never left. She is as an old friend not spoken to very often, although when I communion with her, it is timeless, as if we had conversed just yesterday. And in her towns and cities, I find my place. 

Of all the beautiful cities in the South, there is none greater than Charleston, a proper city, as one of my fraternal brothers would say. It is the Holy City of the South; it’s high and beautiful steeples clarify that distinction whenever arriving from harbor side. Long is its religious history, old are its graveyards, and of all those buried in her holy soil; it was the tomb of John C. Calhoun calling to me as a phantom, beckoning my soul to a pilgrimage of homage too long delayed. To my pleasure, no disappointment was found in its discovery, just to the west of St. Philip’s Church, across a narrow street, through an iron gate, and roughly fifteen yards to my right. There it was the resting place of this magnificent South Carolinian. 

John Caldwell Calhoun; Vice President, Secretary of War, Secretary of State, Senator, member of the House of Representatives, his accomplishments are endless. His defense of the moral good of slavery was socially, legally, and, by Christian theology, sound, not just then, but throughout all of history. We need make no apologies for our ancestors on this matter. His statesmanship was unmatched among the second generation of American thinkers. While paying homage, I came across some bewildered Californians that had haplessly found his tomb, not knowing who he was at all. They were a delightful couple in their late thirties, and as I engage with them, the young lady asked if I was going to give them a history lesson. Of course! I could not disappoint and dishonor my people, nor brother Calhoun’s good name. I have found over the past few years, as Californian refugees have descended on Dixie, that they have no sense of the past, no history that goes beyond the last election, or the last binge worthy series on Netflix. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we must lead them in the way they should go, and especially their children, who will most distinctly embrace Southern culture in subsequent generations, if we are faithful to our ancestors’ memories. 

Faithfulness to my ancestor, more specifically to my father, compelled me to leave this tangible testimony to beautiful design and engineering, intellect, and the worshipfulness of generations of our people, and travel south to my most special place. Though South Carolina has always been home to me, Beaufort has always been my cradle, she was the place of my nurturing, my childhood. Her picturesque historic downtown, drawbridge, waterfront, nearby beaches, lighthouse, etc., were the perfect setting for a young boy to be as carefree as possible, especially while growing up during the tense times of the conflict in Vietnam, and the racial unrest of the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

Countless young men arrived on the island that was my playground, but their parade ground, transforming mere boys into hardcore Marines, thus fulfilling the Yankee lust for power in another escapade of the growing American Empire. I saw them arrive and depart, and I saw the wasteful aftermath, as the Empire laid them to rest in Low Country sand, shaded by mossy, ancient oak trees. Not even two decades later, I got to see an honor guard of sharply dressed Marines pay homage to my father, as only Marines can do. I watched the tears of my siblings and relations as the flag was folded and presented, the rifles and bugler sounded farewell, and my father laid to rest among his brothers, a casualty of that same conflict, but by a slower unseen killer, Agent Orange. This enemy attacked his nervous system, causing him to shake randomly, ultimately leading to a fall that took his life. He was a young man, just barely over fifty. 

This was the occasion for our returning to Beaufort, although we have been back many times, this visit was different. I spent time talking to my father in the stone garden where he rests. I thanked him, acknowledging that it was his example and his struggles that formed me into the man I am today. I reminded my father of what a great legacy would continue on through his bloodline. There is a rite of passage at age 17 for my children, we sit down and watch the first part of Full Metal Jacket. They familiarize themselves with the character “Gunny” and get a better understanding of how their father was raised, and a glimpse into the world of their grandfather. A hero they would never get a chance to know. 

The Empire is a slow and methodical killer, especially for our people. It has slowly bled us since 1861. If it does not destroy our bodies, on foreign battlefields for vain glory and gold, as in the case of my father, it will most certainly destroy our reputations, as it has the great men of Dixie, such as John C. Calhoun. However, we are getting wiser, no longer enjoining our sons in large numbers as in times past, no longer the janissary class of this dying empire. We are remembering our heroes, as these two great South Carolinians, and pursuing a path that will lead us into the future, unashamed and vigilant to see our ancestors’ vision of a free and independent Dixie accomplished, in a glorious and victorious age! 

Deo Vindice!

God save the South!