Patriotism

What does it mean to be a patriotic American?

Does it require some type of service or observance of rituals such as standing for the flag?

I gather some would say it does but there are enough example of spies or traitors who can do those things.

If we look at our history we see people who served the country, and we honor them as patriots, but some who served later on went on to do unpatriotic things.

Of course what is the patriotic thing to do in many cases is a difficult question.

You can look at a person like Hillary Clinton who spent much of her life in public service who is attacked by some for that very service.

Even the respect we show our military has varied over time and is likely to vary again considering the past.

This question is somewhat addressed in the movie "Saving Private Ryan" and if you haven't seen that movie this is a bit of a spoiler.

In that movie a group of Rangers is sent to locate the last surviving son of a mother who had sent her four sons to war.  Saving this one man costs multiple lives in the effort, although of course they died fighting which was actually more related to the war going on than the mission.  However at the end, the Captain who led the mission, tells Private Ryan as a young man, "Earn this!".

Now we know he got sent home and we know that many years later he visited the Normandy site with his family.  He appears to have lived a normal American life, possibly as a farmer, since he was a farm boy originally.

In the movie we feel that that was enough, being a good man, raising a family and caring were enough.

Of course we also know from the movie that Private Ryan fought heroically before he was "saved" so there isn't any real doubt about his being a patriot.

Still, most of his life was simply spent working, raising a family and we assume enjoying his life.

We certainly don't know his politics or his religion but why would any of that be relevant.

I don't know what being a patriot really means but I suspect its related to more than just saluting a flag or singing a song.

Happy Fourth of July!