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Thirty-three years ago this month “Hook” hit the big screen. Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman, and Julia Roberts, the modern classic took a twist on the classic tale of Peter Pan.

Peter Pan played by Robin Williams, was all grown up, with a family of his own, and weighty business to attend to. The cares of life weighed him down. He was distracted. He ignored his family. But one scene ranks to me as one of the most incredibly poignant moments in modern movie history.

You see, Peter Pan had forgotten who he was. The once-great Pan could not remember his childhood adventures. His fantastic legacy was a distant dream. He couldn’t fly, he couldn’t fight, he couldn’t smile. Pan was a stodgy joyless grownup overwhelmed with the cares of life. But then came the scene when the Lost Boys began to wonder if he was really their Peter Pan. The smallest of the Lost Boys began to touch his face, push at the wrinkles, and touch the gray hairs. Then he pushed back both of Peters cheeks making a smile on the older Peter’s face and said, “Oh Peter, there you are”. The Lost Boys knew Peter Pan was back. Peter found himself and got back to really living.

I think that is a picture of America. For too many we’ve lost the joy. Wrapped in the clutter of serious life with the inability to remember who we really are as a nation. As if America has forgotten itself.

Let’s be honest, the past four years have been hard. Covid, and government lockdowns, civil unrest, epic inflation, a bumbling White House, a flagging military, a skewing of traditions, cancel culture, lawfare, transgender activism, BLM riots.

Think back over the past four years under the Biden administration. Is there anyone in the middle east that feared Joe Biden? Was China at all concerned with having a strong friendship with the US? Have the drug cartels and coyotes on the southern border had any concern for US law? If oil prices were steep would the OPEC nations pick up the phone when we called? We warned Russia not to invade Ukraine, but they did it anyway. We abandoned friends and allies in Afghanistan and the Taliban were emboldened.

The world is filled with foreign leaders who stopped valuing our friendship and had no fear of us as an enemy because the Biden administration was filled with glass-ceiling-breaking America-bashing beta-people who insist that climate change is the existential threat to our way of life and that your use of pronouns is the clearest indicator of your worth.

In the midst of hard times Americans began to lose some of the sense that this is the greatest nation on the face of the earth. But I sense a turning. The distant dream of a dynamic America is on the return. We’re going to find that smile and get back flying and fighting and living.

You can see it tangibly in events like the recent Army-Navy football game. President-elect Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and a whole host of patriots attended the annual event. As the National Anthem was sung by cadets from both West Point and Annapolis President Trump stood at attention and saluted. A military flyover followed. The crowd went wild. It felt different. It felt better. It felt like the America that has been missing for a few years.

My sense is that this was not a one-time moment. Patriotism is back. Peace thru strength is back. America is back.

I’m not surprised by President Trump standing at attention and saluting during the Army Navy game. I’m equally not surprised that Joe Biden never did. It’s how they do things. It’s how they view America. One believes in leading from a position of strength. The other believes in apologizing for being strong.

A leftist agenda has stymied our national pride. It is beyond time for leaders to go back to a position of strength and readiness, not equity and wokeness. We have to restore the sense of identity that made us the cowboys of the world. We have to walk in our God-given authority as a force for good, and a foe to evil.

This is our country…..our home….our refuge. A place where the sweat of our brow and the work of our hands has forged a future for our kids. Our country where the generations before us labored, and fought, and loved, and laughed, to form a more perfect union. The core of our citizenry recognizes the value of our national heritage. The vast majority of Americans will fly the flag, stand for the anthem, and volunteer for the cause. We just want leaders who inspire us to do so.

I’m no rocket scientist. I’m just a salty old Ranger who gets misty-eyed when I see the flag waving. I don’t know everything but I can see a few things, even from this side of the far horizon. I can see a nation that is hungry for leadership that reminds them of who they really are: the biggest dog, the greatest friend, the one who helps the hurting, and hurts the harmful. The one that promotes the good and opposes the bad. The by-God United States of America, with whom it is better to be our friend than our foe any day.

We want to be led by those who fully engage these sentiments and restore the pride and patriotism that has been flagging for four long years.

Leadership is coming that embraces the kind of nation that we have been, and still are. We just needed to be reminded.

Oh look America….there you are.