During the elections of 1980, I had been out of the Army for a little over two years and had proudly served under three Presidents -- Nixon, Ford, and Carter. I was attending CSU Chico, and, having been raised in a Democrat Household, and seen John F. Kennedy at Pt. Mugu Naval Air Station in my youth, I considered myself a good Democrat. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," and SSG Barry Sadler's "Ballad of the Green Beret" were my impetus for military service.

While attending CSU Chico, I had friends of like-mind who genuinely feared a Reagan Presidency. This tired old cowboy was going to get us into a nuclear war and set race relations back to Jim Crow days. Supply-side economics would be a bust, causing a great depression greater than the aptly named Great Depression, and he didn't have the finesse to adequately deal with our friends and enemies on the world stage. Sound familiar?

I had voted for President Carter since anything was better than "Tricky Dick" Nixon and anyone associated with him. He was a crook and Watergate was a major scandal, And Republicans who supported him were all that way, weren't they? How dare they try and justify these things or cover them up. The major newspapers and nightly news were relentless in their "solid investigative journalism".

Sure, Carter had his challenges on the world stage, but he was the person with a good heart who would rather appeal to emotion than take an "unpopular" stance. When inflation reached 18% per year and prices were spiraling out of control, and when gas went from 45 cents a gallon to over $1.50 a gallon, well, Carter couldn't be blamed for that. It was all the fault of the greedy OPEC nations. We were told this was going to be the "new normal" and we should get used to it.

And when the "radicals" in Iran seized our embassy and took everyone hostage, poor Jimmy Carter couldn't shoulder the blame for their frustration from decades of meddling by an imperialist U.S. government. We had a student exchange program with Middle Eastern nations -- designed to promote harmony -- not sow the seeds of social discord. I had friends from Iran who disappeared after the mullahs took over the government of Iran. But we were assured by that same media the people of Iran enjoyed living in the 20th Century and they had no interest in the level of Islamic Fundamentalism promoted by the mullahs. This, too would pass. Jimmy Carter even tried to heroically free the hostages, but the military botched the job at a staging area in the desert.

This was the military that was being cut back while I was serving. No more conscription -- we transitioned to an all-volunteer service. That was good. But we had a number of training missions scrapped (including traveling to Israel to train with the IDF), and systems upgrades put on hold or eliminated altogether. We had a fleet of five Jeeps that should have been ready for deployment, but only three were operational at any given time. I was assured we could requisition the needed jeeps from a nondeployed unit if the need ever arose. The military was also undergoing a large Reduction in Force or RIF. I remember speaking with a major at Battalion G2 one week, and the next week, he was working as a staff sergeant in our armory. I started to openly wonder if the Carter military budget cuts and personnel reductions had hampered our readiness and mission performance.

We were all sure Reagan couldn't wait to get his finger on a nuclear device and American Imperialism would reach new heights around the world. When Iran released the American hostages on the day of the Reagan inauguration, I did a figurative double-take. In addition, I had an economics course with a self-professed pro-supply-side instructor. As he explained it, we could actually see interest rates come down. Inflation was being brought under control. This professor had the advantage of teaching what we were experiencing in the real world. We weren't learning meaningless theory -- it was being proven in the marketplace. Now we knew why. I received an A in that class and learned much more than economics.

At the tender age of 22, I started to openly evaluate my core values and question the belief system of the political party to which I belonged. I had many debates with other Democrats on the various policy issues and their justifications for their beliefs didn't square with my core beliefs or make sense from a logical perspective. Theirs was more driven by... emotion.

When questioned about consequences -- intended or unintended, I was quickly rebuked for my nonadherence to the doctrine -- I wouldn't be allowed to openly question. Some evenly became openly hostile, hurling invective such as "bigot" for believing in true racial equality (without preferences) and not patronization of other races, "sexist" for believing in (and celebrating) the differences and individual influences of both sexes, and the almost unavoidable "Nazi" for believing I had the right to question a doctrine based on emotion rather than logic and quantifiable results.

It was at this time I ran across the quote "I didn't leave the Democrat party, the Democrat Party left me". This was how I felt -- to my very core! And it didn't really seem to matter these words were spoken by none other than Ronald Reagan himself.

We are now seeing the same Democratic response to Donald Trump that greeted Ronald Reagan. Vehemence, invective, and outright hatred. Donald Trump has a tremendous opportunity to do even greater things than Ronald Reagan. It is entirely up to him.

Personally, I can only hope many young people and others who have traditionally gone with the herd mentality will have the courage to find their core convictions and square them with the political choices they will make for the rest of their lives.