Can America be great again?

It’s not surprising, given that - as US President Donald Trump repeatedly tells us - America is the greatest country in the universe, the US and its people have wandered in and out of my life over the years.

- Brendan Seery

When I was at primary school, I had a terrible, and sadly unrequited, crush on an American girl on our class. Her parents were missionaries with the Africa Evangelical Fellowship, who had a little community up the road from us. I would ride past the place on my new bike, hoping for just a glimpse...

It didn’t even bother me when the object of my adoration took first prize at school, forcing me into second.

Later, as my knowledge and understanding grew, I found my father also had an admiration for “the Yanks”, having been attached to a US Air Force (USAF) fighter-bomber wing as part of 2 Squadron, South African Air Force (SAAF), during the Korean War.

Two things which stuck in his mind: the only country in the world which would go to war with a Coke machine in the supplies. And, he was intrigued by the fact that their black pilots were all still treated as second-class citizens and kept as non-commissioned, rather than full, officers.