Taken today in an abandoned house in Koshkonong, Wisconsin.

A generation before I was born America survived a national tragedy. President Kennedy was killed by an American, one of our own, trained by the very government he later sought to throw into chaos. A single date, November 22, 1963, shattered the American Dream. Civil unrest, chaos, and war with no meaning followed.

My generation has not learned history’s lesson. CIA trained Osama bin Laden remains uncaptured for his 9/11 crimes. We are still mired in not one, but two wars with uncertain futures that have sent our country into a downward spiral. One of those wars was prefaced entirely on a series of compounding lies. Comedian George Carlin once said that you would have to be asleep to believe in the American Dream. The tragedy is that he was probably right.