I’ve always considered voting to be a privilege of the highest degree. I learned that lesson from my father, W.O. Culbertson Jr., who, injured by a horse falling on him, placed more importance on voting than immediately tending to three cracked ribs and a bruised liver and lung. But I’ve also seen it through the eyes of family members who risked their lives to give people in other countries the right to vote.
In 2004, my brother, W.O. Culbertson III, part of a provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan, witnessed their first national election ever in their history. He told of a young Afghan woman who wept inconsolably because she had lost her voter certificate and could not cast her ballot. You see, when you have been given the right to vote for the first time after living in a repressed country, you take that very seriously.
In 2005, my son-in-law, Matt Peterson, a Marine, served in a unit providing security in Iraq’s first election. Like my brother’s story in Afghanistan, this was a monumental opportunity for the Iraqi people.
He said, “I will remember watching people vote for the first time in a democratic election for the rest of my life. Self-determination is an amazing thing.”
Early in 2011, my son-in-law was serving in the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines at Sangin, Afghanistan. At that point, his unit had sustained the heaviest casualties of any unit in the history of that war. In the fight, that battalion had taken a key Taliban stronghold that had resisted defeat for years.
The Secretary of Defense arrived for a direct personal briefing from the battalion. He was accompanied by a Marine Lieutenant General who had lost his own son, in that very area, just a few months prior.
At the completion of his tour and briefing the Secretary, with the General standing beside him, asked the battalion “Is there anything I can do for you?”
The Marines could have asked for any number of creature comforts because they had been in the field and in heavy battle for an extended period. Dirty and tired, the strain of constant battle evident in their faces, they were silent.
After a long moment, a young Marine spoke up: “Don’t let them forget what we’ve done here.”
“…what we’ve done here…” The enemy was on the run. Markets were active again. Schools were reopened. The provincial governor was able to travel at will for the first time in years. The privilege of voting marked by dipping one’s finger into a jar of purple ink had been brought to Sangin.
The restoration of those nations is a rocky trail, fraught with danger and risk. But if they will hold on to the vote, they will make it; if they don’t, they won’t. The courage and defiance represented by an ink-stained finger there or the secure confidence in a signature on the voter list at the polling place here, mean the same thing: the destiny of a society, ours or theirs, belongs to those who have the passion and the gumption to vote, no matter the obstacles.
Voting is a simple act, but with a price measured in inestimable blood and treasure paid out over history by those who know its value, often paid by those who have it for those who desire it. It is the same act – quiet, secret, sacred - whether cast in a remote village by an Afghan peasant, or in a school gymnasium by a busted-up cowboy.
“Don’t let them forget…”
“The restoration of those nations continues to be a rocky trail fraught with danger and risk, but if they will hold on to the vote, they will make it. If they don’t, they won’t.”
And the same holds true for America. Our sacred right to vote is something to treasure. It is also something to carefully guard because if we lose that right or lose the sanctity of that right . . . we will lose our country.
Myles Culbertson has been engaged in ranching, banking, international trade, border development, regulation & law enforcement, and management of specialized projects. He has served as Executive Director of two state agencies, under four governors, and is presently owner of Myles Culbertson Partners, a business strategy firm.