The image of the United States Marine reaching over the razor-wire-topped wall outside the Kabul airport to lift to up an Afghan infant from its parent’s hand is no doubt going to become one of the most famous photographs in the history of the Corps — not to mention our country. Even in the depths of our national humiliation, it turns out, millions still want to hand up their children to the arms of the United States military.*

That is something to cherish and remember amid the scramble to rescue Americans and their allies from the revenge of the Taliban. No matter how many mistakes Americans have made, our national motives have always been animated by high ideals and friendliness. It’s a point on which President Reagan launched his 1980 campaign, when he spoke to war veterans about Vietnam.

“It is time we recognized that ours was in truth, a noble cause,” he said at a time when almost no one else was saying it. The declaration about a war that America’s Congress had turned against helped him carry 44 states and win the White House. The idea clearly stayed with him, almost like a refrain, throughout his eight years in office. So much so, that he offered an echo of it in his farewell speech.

Reagan delivered his farewell remarks in January 1989. “I’ve been reflecting on what the past eight years have meant and mean,” Reagan said, “And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one — a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea.”

“The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him.

“He yelled, ‘Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.’”

What so affected Reagan — and through him the whole country — was the way the story illuminates how we look to others. Even when we don’t look so hot to ourselves. The saga of the Indochina boat people was one of the darkest moments in American history. The outpouring from Vietnam, after all, was precipitated by our retreat and abandonment of Free Vietnam, for which so many Americans and Vietnamese had given their lives.

Yet it was also one of the most uplifting moments in our history, as Americans rallied. In June 1979, President Carter even re-wrote the agenda of the Group of Seven meeting in Tokyo to place the plight of the Boat People at the top of the priorities of the wealthiest nations. Eventually, America welcomed between 1 million and 2 million of them. It didn’t erase our error in abandoning the war, but it was huge, nonetheless.

It’s not our intention here to absolve President Biden, or any of our other presidents, from their errors in Afghanistan. It is merely to remember how we might look to others — including a nameless father who, in the most desperate moment of his life, looked up, saw a Marine, and handed up his infant child so that the Marine could do what our Marines do and reach over and pluck the youngster to safety. It’s something to cherish in these times.

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*The baby was given medical treatment at a hospital and reunited with his father at the airport, according to a report in the Marine Times; it’s unclear whether the baby and father will be evacuated to another country.