I returned from 2+ years of service in Korea in December 1991. The America I’d left had changed fundamentally and I could feel it in my bones. Something was different. A wedge had been driven between those who lived on the common sense goodness of our founding (and our pained history since then), and those who believed their victim status entitled them to some special consideration from the world at large.

I got my first job in the civilian world as a reporter for a TV station in Evansville, IN as a “one-man-band” reporter-photographer. Driving the many backroads of Indiana and Kentucky alone, I discovered a voice of reason in my topsy-turvy world.

At first he was someone I loved to hate. I disagreed with him often, but had no defense for my alternate views— in fact, his views fit far better with my middle-class conservative Lutheran views than anything I’d ever heard. I learned from Rush that the most important thing one could do is to align their social-political views with the principles they hold closest to their heart.

That may be his most profound impact on this nation. He did more than just reflect what so many of us felt. He emboldened those who thought they had to separate their values from their social-political lives. Doing so changed the political footprint of our nation— a fact I pray lasts for many years to come.

Rush became a fixture for me and my family. My children refer to him as Uncle Rush, and my daughter told him so when she got through to his show once. Rush is deeply grieved and will be sorely missed. Rest in peace, Uncle Rushie... Rest in peace.