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It is sad to hear of a second attempt on one of the presidential candidates’ lives.

It’s a club that no one wants to be a member of; the club where someone tries to take your life. It is reported that only two American presidents are members of the two assassination attempts club: President Gerald R. Ford, while he was the sitting president, and former President Donald Trump, while running as a candidate. The good news is they both survived both attempts.

It is reported that the two men who attacked former President Trump at one time voted for or supported him. It shows the sad state of affairs that when we disagree with someone, we want to see them destroyed. What happened to the ability to disagree without being disagreeable? I submit that it is a sign of lack of true citizenship.

In 1976 we celebrated in America the bicentennial, from 1776 to 1976. As a part of the celebration, schools had bicentennial speeches and bicentennial debates. As a high school student at the time, I had the privilege to participate in the speech and debate competition. You had to win your class, grade, school, county, region and state before you were asked to go to the national. I was extremely blessed to win all the competitions up to the state level. I was one of Ohio’s representatives for the bicentennial speeches and debate competition. There we had to give speeches and debate some of the finest people in the nation in our age group.

It was an exciting time for me and my family. We all met in Washington, D.C., for the national competition. As part of the reward for making it to this level, we were invited to a nighttime tour of the Capitol.

I will never forget it; we visited several monuments at the time. We went by the Washington Monument — how amazing. The Jefferson Memorial — how historic. Then there is the one I almost got arrested at. It was the Lincoln Memorial — how scary.

If you have ever been there, you know that this memorial is dedicated to the achievements of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln.

The whole building is a mammoth structure that you cannot approach without some kind of feeling of awe! You walk into what I am told is 36 columns and look at the 19-foot tall statue of President Lincoln sitting like he is thinking great thoughts.

On one side of the memorial is the inscription in the wall of his second inaugural address. Then the wall also includes the famous Gettysburg Address, one of the shortest and most powerful speeches in our nation’s history. It is said that he wrote it out five different times, changing a word or a phrase until he got the one he would finally read that day.

Not sure if all were written before he gave the speech or after for history purposes. One of the copies is on display in the Lincoln Room of the White House. The one that he actually read from on that historic day, he wrote on both sides of the paper. It is said the one in the White House he signed at the end, the only one he is reported to have signed.

The speech says: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

“But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advance. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increase devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

–Abraham Lincoln

Nov. 19, 1863

I don’t know what happened to me, maybe it was the night air, maybe it was the fact that it was the bicentennial, maybe I was just a foolish teenager, but I did something I would soon regret. I started reading out loud the Gettysburg Address inside of the Lincoln Memorial. My voice echoed through the memorial. A small crowd gathered around me, but I did not notice it. As I came to an end, it seemed like a battalion of Park Police surrounded me and put the fear of God in me. They told me that the memorial is a silent memorial, and reading out loud is not permitted.

I like to imagine that Dr. Martin L. King Jr. and I are the only ones who spoke at the Lincoln Memorial. The truth is I was speaking on the inside and was illegal, he was speaking on the outside of the memorial and was permitted. Also, it is true that a great number of people have spoken there as well. But that’s my story, and I am sticking with it.

The speech that won me the trip to Washington, D.C., was titled “My country right or wrong!” The thought was that I did not have to agree with all that my country has done, but it is still my country — that we could disagree but still not be disagreeable.

It is still my belief that I don’t have to agree with everything someone says and does to work with them. Rodney King made that famous statement, “Can’t we all just get along?” during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

I just want to say, “Amen.”