- Feb 5, 2002
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I grew up with Charlie Kirk. No, I don’t mean that we went to school together or lived on the same street as kids.
Charlie grew up in the suburbs outside Chicago, while I spent much of my life in Carroll County, roughly 20 miles west of Baltimore. Charlie was only a year my senior. He and I grew up in the same America. We were close to the same age when the cataclysmic September 11 attacks took place. We were around the same age when Barack Obama rose to sudden prominence and popularity and took the White House. We both watched the same conservative pundits, and both became involved with grassroots campaigns. We were both raised Christian, but did not really invest in our faith until early adulthood. We are both husbands and both fathers.
In some ways, I could have been Charlie, and Charlie could have been me.
I imagine that a lot of young men feel much the same way. In fact, I know that a lot of young men feel much the same way. Charlie was all of us, but he was also the best of us. Where the rest of us were prone to in-fighting and bickering, obsessed over our “original” ideas and fought to make sure that we got credit for them, lost our tempers easily and dismissed opposing viewpoints with a derisive wave of the hand, Charlie built coalitions and friendships, gladly gave credit to the great thinkers who shaped his worldview, and always invited others to sit down and talk, to have a conversation. He was all of us in the sense that each of us could see something of ourselves in him, but he was the best of us in that he could always inspire the rest of us, despite minute political disagreements, to want to be better men.
Continued below.
washingtonstand.com
Charlie grew up in the suburbs outside Chicago, while I spent much of my life in Carroll County, roughly 20 miles west of Baltimore. Charlie was only a year my senior. He and I grew up in the same America. We were close to the same age when the cataclysmic September 11 attacks took place. We were around the same age when Barack Obama rose to sudden prominence and popularity and took the White House. We both watched the same conservative pundits, and both became involved with grassroots campaigns. We were both raised Christian, but did not really invest in our faith until early adulthood. We are both husbands and both fathers.
In some ways, I could have been Charlie, and Charlie could have been me.
I imagine that a lot of young men feel much the same way. In fact, I know that a lot of young men feel much the same way. Charlie was all of us, but he was also the best of us. Where the rest of us were prone to in-fighting and bickering, obsessed over our “original” ideas and fought to make sure that we got credit for them, lost our tempers easily and dismissed opposing viewpoints with a derisive wave of the hand, Charlie built coalitions and friendships, gladly gave credit to the great thinkers who shaped his worldview, and always invited others to sit down and talk, to have a conversation. He was all of us in the sense that each of us could see something of ourselves in him, but he was the best of us in that he could always inspire the rest of us, despite minute political disagreements, to want to be better men.
Continued below.
A Tough Week for Fathers: Reflections on the Slayings of Charlie Kirk and Iryna Zarutska
I grew up with Charlie Kirk. No, I don't mean that we went to school together or lived on the same street as kids. Charlie grew up in the suburbs outside Chicag
