The Story Isn’t Over: A Patriot’s Gratitude This Fourth of July
From my grandfather’s uniform in India to the stars and stripes I now salute - why hope still rises in America
The first flag I saluted wasn’t American.
It was the Indian tricolor.
Three colors. A wheel. And a song that made my spine straighten.
I was a child in the 1970s, growing up in a middle-middle-class home in a country still finding its feet. We didn’t have much. Not many around us did.
The roads were cracked, the power cut out often, and everything smelled faintly of dust and effort. But we had faith in schoolbooks, in our parents, and in the Constitution.
That faith was tested the year democracy itself was suspended.
Mid-1970s. Emergency.
No elections. Press muzzled. The air grew heavy, suspicious. I was too young to understand all of it, but I remember the fear. It crept into dinner table conversations, into school assemblies, into the way adults looked over their shoulders.
And yet - India came back.
The Constitution held.
Democracy stumbled, but it got back up.
That shaped me.
Because once you’ve seen rights taken, you never again take them for granted.
My grandfather was a soldier.
A quiet man. Indian Army.
He served with distinction. UN forces in Vietnam and Korea, three wars for a still-fragile India. Twenty-five years in uniform, and not once did I hear him raise his voice.
He taught me everything I know about masculinity. And none of it had to do with volume.
He was all grace and steel.
He believed that true strength meant shielding the weak, not intimidating them. That leadership meant knowing when to be firm - and when to simply listen.
That empathy wasn’t a soft thing. It was power, properly used.
He wore his medals lightly. What mattered more, he said, was coming home with integrity. And making sure the people under your command got to go home, too.
It’s no wonder, then, that I grew up loving flags, anthems, and uniforms - never for what they claimed, but for what they promised.
When I moved to the U.S. as a young man, I didn’t feel like I was replacing anything.
I felt like I was continuing something.
Freedom. Service. Hope.
I get goosebumps every time I see the American flag ripple under a bright sky.
Every time the anthem plays.
Every time I see someone in uniform, standing tall but never above the people they protect.
Some might think it strange for an immigrant to feel so strongly.
But that’s the thing about immigrants - we carry a double exposure.
We don’t just love this country for what it is.
We love it for what it has the power to be, because we know what the alternative looks like.
Ask an immigrant what they see when they look at America, and you won’t get a slogan.
You’ll get a story.
Of leaving something hard.
Of building something better.
Of learning to love a country not for its perfection, but for its pursuit.
Ask any service member why they joined, and you’ll hear stories like that, too.
Some joined to eventually pay for college.
Some to escape a dead-end town.
Some for tradition.
Some for the sheer belief that they could help keep people safe.
But ask them long enough, and their eyes change.
Their voice softens.
There’s always a moment when they say, in their own way:
“Because someone had to.”
I once met a Marine at O’Hare Airport, barely twenty. A kid, really. He was on his way to Camp Pendleton. “Deployment coming up,” he said. I asked him why he joined.
He smiled. “Figured I’d do something bigger than me. My high school was chaos.”
That’s what it comes down to.
Not bombs.
Not borders.
Just the bold act of standing up when it’s easier to sit down.
That kind of service, that sense of common good, is the core of what I call the Commonwealth.
Not just a word from old books.
Not just states on a map.
But the idea that we share something bigger than ourselves.
That strength is not about domination.
It’s about protection.
That patriotism is not about loud declarations.
It’s about quiet acts of care.
America isn’t perfect.
No nation is.
We have our wounds. Our wrongs.
But we also have a heartbeat that keeps saying, “Try again.”
We are not bound by blood or kings.
We are bound by choice.
The decision, renewed every day, to keep building together.
That is rare.
And precious.
And deeply American.
When people ask me why I get emotional at parades or national anthems, I try to explain:
I grew up in a country that struggled to protect its democracy, but did.
I carry the lessons of a grandfather who stood in mud-soaked trenches and taught me that true service is quiet and daily.
I’ve seen countries fall. I’ve seen them rise again.
And now I live in one that - despite the noise and the politics and the endless arguing—still shows up.
Still votes.
Still dreams.
I’ve seen the flaws.
And I’ve seen the miracles.
I’ve seen immigrants open stores and hire neighbors.
I’ve seen high schoolers start nonprofits with nothing but Wi-Fi and willpower.
I’ve seen veterans work construction by day and coach Little League at night, just to give the next kid a shot.
We are not the headlines.
We are the stories underneath.
The ones that don’t trend.
But endure.
So this Fourth of July, I will stand.
I will place my hand on my heart.
And I will whisper thanks -
Not for what we claim to be.
But for what we are brave enough to keep becoming.
Because the work isn’t done.
The hope isn’t gone.
And the flag, wherever it waves, still means something if we make it mean something.
Let us build a country that earns the anthem.
That honors the sacrifice.
That carries the quiet strength of those who came before—and the dreams of those still to come.
Because the story isn’t over.
It’s only ours to finish.
Wishing all my fellow citizens another Happy 4th and a wonderful Sunday!
With gratitude,
Adi