I am writing this as the ARISE USA Tour leaves the Nashville area after a great stop in Columbia, Tennessee. The buzz in the area is the skyrocketing No. 1 hit song, “Am I the Only One,” written and sung by Aaron Lewis.
First off, kudos to anyone in today’s world who is willing to speak their mind, and particularly when it forces you to swim upstream in the body of water where you live. In case you have not heard the song, it makes the statement, “I can’t be the only one in the country saying how can this happen here?” So many have sacrificed blood, sweat, tears and even their lives to fight for freedom and now we just hand it over without so much as a fight.
Aaron Lewis addresses every bit of this in his great song that has captivated the nation.
We are winding up our ARISE USA Tour and there has been one very significant development that I never really considered. It’s fairly relevant that we have a huge mobile billboard presence as we roll into town with four Prevost coaches, totally wrapped with messages of faith, family and freedom, which draws a bit of attention.
At each stop, whether it be to fuel up, to catch a wink or just an ordinary stop, folks are curious, “What y’all about?” I always start by saying, “We are bringing the nation back to God and country.” Immediately, the person asks to give me a bear hug and says, “God bless you.” It doesn’t seem to matter, male or female. One such occurrence was in Peoria, Illinois, with seven guys traveling through central Illinois from Alabama. They followed up with, “When will you be in the Birmingham area?” I actually had to look the date up because May 19 was so many moons ago.
Therein lies the real story. People are hungry for a glimmer of hope to latch on to. Folks really need to know that they are “not the only one.” I see this across all political parties, races and religions. Everyone is really tired of the nonsense that is happening in our nation.
I very clearly see, as the lyrics to Lewis’ song say, our role in traveling to the vast number of states and communities we have is simply to give grass roots Americans the confidence that they are not the only ones. We have had our communities targeted. Our children are being held hostage and we will not sit silently any more. We will stand loud and proud and, perhaps most importantly, our kids will follow the example of our actions and not hide in fear.
Kevin Jenkins, our closer on the tour, has reiterated that this is the year of action. This is our designated time to change the course of the future for our children. It is also important that we display for those watching that we can be trusted to uphold the greatest experiment in liberty the world has witnessed yet.
At the end of the day, the answer comes back to the basic formation of this nation. It is about strong local communities. I realize that all of us have some division within our communities, but when it really gets tough we need to know that we have each other’s backs. I am seeing some great progress in that regard as I just got off the phone with Eddie Shelton in Goliad County, Texas. He shared that the local community rallied around a neighboring rancher who had 138 cattle seized for animal care issues. The neighbors, instead of staying quiet for fear of being targeted, actually took a stand for him and the cattle were returned.
So in answer to Aaron Lewis, you are not the only one, and the list is growing faster than the United States summer corn crop. We can return our land to one that holds faith, family and freedom in highest esteem.
Editor’s note: Trent Loos is a sixth generation United States farmer, host of the daily radio show, Loos Tales, and founder of Faces of Agriculture, a non-profit organization putting the human element back into the production of food. Get more information at www.LoosTales.com, or email Trent at [email protected].