Patriotism doesn’t require everyone to agree. For Trident Mindset’s Chriss Smith Jr., it means contribution, honesty and a willingness to serve something greater than yourself.
At America’s 250-year mark, patriotism is an easy word to say and a harder one to define.
For Chriss Smith Jr., a former Navy SEAL and co-founder of Trident Mindset, being a patriotic American does not require blind agreement or a perfect country.
It requires contribution, honesty and a willingness to serve something larger than yourself.
Wrestling With What Patriotism Means
I asked a few close friends a simple question, and the longer we talked, the less simple it became. These are men I respect, from different backgrounds and different ways of seeing the world. What I appreciated most was not that we landed on the same answer. We didn’t. What I appreciated was that we were willing to wrestle with the question.
That may be one of the most American things we can do.
Because America is not simple. It never has been. It is a country built on ideals that are clear enough to inspire generations, but complicated enough to challenge every generation that inherits them. Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. Those words sound clean until my version of liberty runs into yours. Until your pursuit of happiness rubs against mine. Until our histories, beliefs, wounds, values and expectations all meet under the same flag.
That is where patriotism gets tested.
A Patriotic American Can Make Room for Disagreement
One of the ideas that kept coming up in our conversation was the image of America as an umbrella. Under that umbrella are people born here, people naturalized here, people who came here chasing opportunity, people whose families have served, suffered, built, sacrificed, disagreed, protested, protected and contributed. Under that umbrella are different beliefs, politics, religions, cultures and versions of what a good life looks like.
That does not make America weak. That makes America, America.
But it also means patriotism cannot simply mean agreement. If your definition of patriotism requires everyone to think exactly like you, vote exactly like you, worship exactly like you, speak exactly like you and see the country exactly like you do, then I think you have made patriotism too small.
A patriotic American understands the bigger picture. An American patriot serves it.
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Patriotism Is More Than Military Service
Service does not have to mean wearing a uniform. I believe deeply in military service. It shaped my life. It gave me brothers, standards, scars, lessons and a clearer understanding that freedom is never free.
But the country is not only defended by those who serve in uniform. It is also defended by parents raising strong children, mentors and coaches building confidence and neighbors who choose to contribute more than they consume.
Patriotism, to me, is about contribution. You cannot call yourself a patriot if you only take from the country and never put anything back.
I also think patriotism requires the ability to tolerate disagreement without immediately seeing each other as enemies. That feels harder now than it used to. We live in a time when people sort themselves into ideological tribes very quickly, and once that happens, it becomes easy to believe that anyone who sees the country differently must hate it.
But loving a country and criticizing it are not opposites. In many cases, criticism comes from investment. People fight over America because they care about what it is, what it has been and what it could become. A patriot should be able to hold pride and honesty at the same time. Pride without honesty becomes blind nationalism. Honesty without any pride or responsibility becomes cynicism and contempt.
Pride, Honesty and the Work of Contribution
One idea from those conversations stayed with me: This country has not always loved all of its people equally, but many of those same people have still chosen to believe in what America could become.
That is what patriotism looks like when it costs something.
That contribution may be loud or quiet. Public or private. It may look like service, leadership, hard work, honest business, paying your share, helping your neighbor, mentoring a young man, raising your family well or standing in the uncomfortable middle when everyone else wants to retreat into their corner.
Maybe that is what patriotism really is. Not perfection. Not slogans. Not blind agreement. But a willingness to contribute to something larger than yourself while accepting that millions of other Americans, standing under the same umbrella, will understand that responsibility differently. That is not a problem to solve. That is the country.
America at 250 Still Needs the Menders
The fabric has holes in it. It always has—some worn through by history, some by our own hands. But as one of my friends put it simply, that doesn’t mean it stops keeping us warm.
Two hundred and fifty years in, America is not asking for your admiration. It’s asking for your needle. Every generation that came before us found the holes and made a choice. Contribute to the mending, or just point at what’s torn.
That is still the assignment.
Editor’s Note:Chriss Smith Jr. is the co-founder and CEO of Trident Mindset, a mental health and mental toughness training program developed by Navy SEALs, intelligence operatives and neuroscientists. Chriss spent 12 years serving as a U.S. Navy SEAL and is Hook & Barrel’s regular “Wisdom” columnist. For America’s 250th anniversary, we asked him to answer one question: What makes a patriotic American? For more from Chriss, read his advice on staying in shape after 40 and turning setbacks into success.
