Author's Note: The 365 Project is an experimental project to write and post at least one short every day for the next year, not including my semi-regular bi-weekly updates. Whether or not that goal can be reached, we'll see... This is The 365 Project, 17 February.

Disclaimer; I don't own or make money from Hetalia or any characters thereof, using them without permission for entertainment purposes solely.


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"To Father"
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

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There's a lot of things people forget, the old because of time, the young because they're not taught it, but Nations remember. We carry the scars of our darkest days and the memories of our greatest triumphs. People see memorials and monuments, we see reminders of people that we knew and that knew us, of battles fought and of blood shed. Too much blood, sometimes, but sometimes that's how it is.

Too much blood shed between brothers...

We don't talk much any more; he refuses to listen, claiming that since I lost our fight I don't count as a Nation anymore, and I won't back down from the simple fact that my people believe in me, their loyalty to my symbols and borders and to my reasons for being still stands and as long as it does, it doesn't matter how many fights I lose, I'll stand up for what I, what they, what we believe in; the rights of the people and of the states. I'll stand even firmer for those rights since that brother of mine is becoming more and more enticed by the idea of 'the rights of the federal government'.

We were founded on the same ideals, the same concept of the right to self-rule... our Founding Fathers never wanted this, our father never wanted this. Our father because George Washington was as much my father as he was that of the United States, he pledged his life, his fortune and his Sacred Honor to the cause of liberty, to fight against tyranny, not just of Americans by the English but of Americans by Americans as well. That's why he supported so strongly a Constitutional Republic for a government, to keep government power in the hands of the people through their representatives. He never believed in these 'career politicians' like we've got now, he never did. Simply, Father believed in the ideal of the federal government being answerable to the states and those to the people, the same ideal that I was born under when the United States began to waver from it.

Everyone remembers that Robert E. Lee said "I shall never bear arms against the Union, but it may be necessary for me to carry a musket in the defense of my native state, Virginia, in which case I shall not prove recreant to my duty", but they keep forgetting that Father was a Virginian too; stepfather to the grandfather of Robert E. Lee's wife Mary, in fact; and so as much a Southerner as anyone who wore the grey during the time my brother and I fought. Even if he died long before I came into being, he's still my Father. So while that brother of mine keeps calling today 'Presidents' Day', trying to honor people some of whom just don't deserve it, I know what I plan to celebrate in a few days...

Because the twenty-second is George Washington's Birthday.