My late father-in-law grew up in a shack like this:

He picked cotton to help his widowed mother care for the five children she was left to raise when his father died young.

He worked his way through two years of college before joining the Army Air Corps aviation cadet program in 1939. He earned his wings and was commissioned a second lieutenant in September 1941. He proposed to my future mother-in-law on December 6, 1941 — the day before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

After training many Air Corps pilots for combat, he was sent to the Pacific Theater in 1944, where he flew many combat missions. He stayed in the Air Force (as it became) after the war ended and flew many more combat missions in the Korean War.

He rose to the rank of colonel at a relatively early age and ended his 30-year career as commander of an award-winning wing. (He would have made brigadier general, but Lyndon Johnson gave the slot to his Air Force One pilot.) His drive to excel and his leadership skills carried over into a successful and stressful civilian career.

He retired for good at the age of 63 and lived out his life happily and comfortably in his adopted hometown.

He died at the age of 96, loved and mourned by family and friends.

He hated Democrats — he called them demoncrats — not because of what Lyndon Johnson did to him but because of what they were doing to the country.

Now, almost ten years after my father-in-law’s passing, the demoncrats have redoubled their efforts to destroy the American dream. The dream for which he worked and fought — and which he was able to live.