No apology needed
<p>A few moments ago I received email from the Iranian who first asked me to try to help the dissidents fourteen month ago.  I reproduce his email and my response in its entirety, except that I omit information that might identify him.</p>
<p><span id="more-2589"></span></p>
<blockquote><p>
> Dear Eric ,<br />
><br />
> On behalf of most Iranian people , I&#8217;m &#8220;so sorry&#8221; that you feel like this :(<br />
><br />
> Your actions are and will be so valuable to us and we appreciate your<br />
> attempts from the bottom of our hearts .<br />
><br />
> If I knew that you will face with such a barbarian threat,  I&#8217;d never<br />
> emailed to you about what happened in Iran last year :(<br />
><br />
> I&#8217;m very very sorry for what&#8217;s happened to you &#8230;<br />
> God bless you Eric , and take care &#8230;<br />
><br />
> Sincerely Yours ,
</p></blockquote>
<p>No apology needed.  Nothing I have experienced is even comparable to<br />
the risks and suffering Iranians endure daily in their struggle to be<br />
free of the mullahocracy.</p>
<p>I am grateful to have even have had the chance to try to help.  The small risk<br />
to my life was more than justified by the potential to strike a blow at an<br />
odious tyranny. </p>
<p>In thinking about the risks, and deciding I could accept then, and doing<br />
so, I acted on my most fundamental values. I walk a little taller and feel<br />
a little happier today &#8211; more fulfilled, more myself &#8211; because I passed<br />
that test.</p>
<p>That test was a gift.  Thank you.</p>
<p>UPDATE:  For the blog, I have a bit more to add:</p>
<p>I do not want to be thought of as heroic for risking my life in the defense of liberty.  Instead, I want this to be understood as the ordinary duty of every American.  </p>
<p>In 1961, President John F. Kennedy said this: &#8220;Today we need a nation of minutemen; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.&#8221;</p>
<p>JFK was not proposing anything novel.  Rather, he was reminding Americans of their roots as libertarian revolutionaries, as the people who said a resounding &#8220;NO!&#8221; to tyranny and backed that up with their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.</p>
<p>This is what being an American <em>means</em>.  And it&#8217;s why, though I grew up on three different continents and forgot two languages before I was thirteen, I am and always have been American down to the bone.</p>
