As a nation we began to lose our virtue toward the end of WWII when globalists like the Rockefellers brought the Frankfurt School into our nation that they would demoralize and debauch Americans as they had done to Germans prior to Hitler's arrival. The rotten seeds planted throughout our institutions by the Frankfurt School and fellow travelers took root and bore fruit. Generation by generation more rotten fruit came forth until this generation, the generation of the Woke, Luciferian Democrats, Satanists, Hunter Biden, Epstein, BLM, Beto O'Rourke, Brittany, et al.
You are correct in the lesson of history. One that too few know and understand.
I would go even further..... the “Frankfurt School” was replaced by the supreme efforts to co-opt academia by the KGB in the Cold War with great effectiveness. Khruschev said the quiet part out loud and if he were around today he would be quite proud.
Academia in America has been the root of the modern left and they are the BIGGEST influence on media, culture, bureaucracy, and the courts. The “grievance culture” of America can be laid at their feet. Brittney was immersed in it with tragic consequences for her personally.
Throughout human history “who” do despots purge immediately with a change in power? Academics. Many of the Academics who wholeheartedly supported Castro in Cuba were imprisoned or disappeared because Castro knew that they were the biggest threat to his power.
The Bible provides the best method of understanding the world today and always. The father of lies is winning the battle for hearts and minds even as he will certainly lose the war.
While your point and mine about external forces eroding the base of our nation is true, it is the lack of biblical morality and norms that creates the space in which evil can flourish and it is flourishing!
PS - I was an Army brat and lived in Europe for many years and became a veteran myself. FRegards for your family and words of wisdom.