I’ve spent quite a few Christmas holidays in some of the worst places on the planet. The kind of nasty locations you won’t see a half-naked Instagram influencer or celebrity posting pictures at that’s for damn sure.

When SOFREP Editor-in-Chief, Sean, asked me to write up a funny deployment Christmas story, I started writing about that time I spent in Afghanistan with ECHO and DELTA platoon, and that big fire that Ed fell into but I kept losing steam and backslid to what I was about to write because my mind was on the state of America.

The politically correct pendulum has swung itself off the gear, and we appear not to know what the hell to do or say these days.

“Can we even say Merry Christmas these days or is that too offensive?” I caught myself thinking the other day and what had me think about writing this post.

My mom’s side of the family is Christian. My parents were both hippies, but we still celebrated Christmas. I believe the Holiday generally brings out the best in people, and that’s a good thing. We need more “best of people” these days. I just finished a course at Harvard Business School that was a mix of countries, only 30% of the class was American. In addition to meeting some incredible people, I unearthed some pretty amazing perspectives on how the rest of the world is looking at America.

My conclusion?

America is like a Navy SEAL student lost in the mountains trying to navigate without a map, the sun is going down, and it’s getting real cold…bare feet toes numb after running out to get the mail on driveway pavers in the dead of winter cold.

Our strawberries taste like cardboard, in general, what we produce and feed our citizens is causing cancer and heart disease at alarming rates. While healthy trade with China and others prevents conflict we’ve gone so far as to export 90% of our drug manufacturing to China. Think about that for a minute…