The American dime is a symbol. Like all coins, it represents something about us as a nation. A thousand years from now our current dime, the 1776~2026 Emerging Liberty dime, like ancient Roman coins we find today, will be discovered by metal detectors. Like the Romans, that symbol will tell descendants who we thought we were.

I’ve discovered many coins in European landfills, on hilltops, and in ancient sewers. Obscure emperors, with their laurel wreaths of forgotten victories, were engraved on these long-ago coins. Here in America I’ve found coins carried by soldiers of the American Civil War and wars against native Americans. Wars are what too many coins are about.

The Semiquincentennial dime is missing something. Whereas previously the American eagle had arrows and olive branches in its talons, now we only see arrows in the eagle’s claws. The olive branches stood for peace, the arrows for war. In fact, the original symbolism commemorated the power of war and peace vested in Congress.

President Harry S. Truman wanted the eagle facing the olive branches on coins made during his time in office. He hoped to symbolize peace after the colossal World War II. Those who have known violence seek peace. Violence achieves nothing lasting, can never lead to justice.

Now we find only war’s arrows as our symbol for 2026, for today’s America wants to be seen as mighty warriors. Our current administration says it wants to be seen as killers who will hit an enemy when he is down, the better to show how lethal and tough we are. So, mighty warriors symbolize who we are during our 250th anniversary as a nation.

Many of those who live in our country are wounded by wars, declared or not. They suffered and carry physical and mental scars with them for the rest of their lives.

If asked, they will tell you they did their best, and suffered for their country. Their families are bereft in grief, knowing their beloved are blind, lame, or forever mentally wounded. Or dead.

Few will offer long odes of “reasons why.” Few will say they would gladly do it again or want the same for their own family. They value peace. They do not celebrate or commemorate war.

A recent news clip recalled how the husband of a resident from our county died in the Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983.

Our sons went to school with his kids. I lost a friend in the same explosion. Both were killed, and we weren’t even at war.

Together with Pope Leo, we say today, “Cease fire so that avenues for dialogue may be reopened. Violence can never lead to the justice, stability, and peace that the people are waiting for.”

George Orwell, who wrote Animal Farm and 1984, wrote another powerful book called Homage to Catalonia. It is a tale of his experiences during the brutal fighting of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. He wrote a famous line in it that could be very appropriate today:

“One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”

Those who scream for violence, lethality, and killing the most will never step foot where the bullets fly.

Only those too poor or unconnected to avoid war tend to be the ones who go. How easy for someone to stand and denounce as unpatriotic those who challenge our presence in wars of choice.

How simple to insult those who say we should consider the ways of peace, that violence achieves nothing in the end.

In fact, to recall an American general of a recent “forever war,” when we kill one “terrorist” we create 10 to 20 more, hoping to revenge the person killed.

A recent film clip from Iran showed a father, overwhelmed with grief, helplessly pushing rocks away from where his child was buried alive after an American bombing. I wish I could comfort the man. What if I was the one digging hopelessly to find my own son.

Someday, generations from now, they’ll find our American dime from 2026. It will tell the world we thought of ourselves as a mighty, warrior nation. We’ll be as forgotten as the laurel wreaths of unremembered Roman emperors.

Author

John William Davis is a retired U.S. Army counterintelligence officer, civil servant, and linguist. He was commissioned from Washington University in St. Louis in 1975. After years in artillery, he entered counterintelligence and served some 37 years, half of that time in Cold War Europe. He has collected ancient coins since being introduced to metal detecting by a friend in Europe, where rules are far more stringent than here. Davis learned foreign languages in each country he served. After the Cold War and its bitter aftermath, he wrote Rainy Street Stories, Reflections on Secret Wars, Terrorism, and Espionage, and later Around the Corner on the same themes.