Bob McCarty Writes

Twenty-six years ago, Ionel “Greg” Grigore came to the United States from Romania in search of freedom and opportunity.  Today, the 54-year-old St. Louis businessman finds himself again battling dark political forces not unlike the ones that caused him to want to leave the Eastern European homeland of his birth.

Recently, I spoke with Grigore as he was in the heat of a battle, participating in an anti-socialism rally sponsored by the K and N Patriots at the intersection of Highways K and N in O’Fallon, Mo.  In between waves of his Gadsden Flag at passing motorists, Grigore explained to me many of the reasons why he feels so strongly about the need to fight for freedom in this country.

“Let’s say I came from hell,” said Grigore when asked to describe what it was like to live under Soviet-style communism in what was then a Warsaw Pact country under the thumb of communist oppressors.

Everything changed for him when he came to the United States.

“I came when Reagan was my president, my first president (and) became a U.S. citizen after five years,” he explained, “and I have the privilege right now to demonstrate against Obama.

And what does he tell friends about the current state of affairs in this country under a president he freely describes as a socialist and/or communist.

“I usually tell them, ‘When God closes a door, He opens a window,’” he said, “so we don’t worry.  In November, we’re gonna take over.”

At the same time, Grigore’s careful to avoid painting the fight as a battle of political parties, Republicans against Democrats.  It’s bigger than that.

“I don’t want to see America like other countries,” he said, recalling his family’s hardships in Romania that continue for many relatives still there.  “I don’t want to see anybody suffering what we suffered.

“It doesn’t matter how educated you are over there, still, life is hard,” he continued.  “After 20 years, they still have the scars from communism, socialism, and they cannot recover (despite the fact) they work so hard.

“When (Romanian President Nicolae) Ceaucescu took over, we thought there was going to be freedom, but that didn’t happen,” he explained. Instead, life turned out to be horrible for most Romanians from from the day in 1974 when Ceaucescu took office to the day in 1989 when he was ousted and executed.

One of the people who suffered horribly under communist rule was Grigore’s mother, Dumitra.

By the time she came to the United States four years after her son and not long after Ceaucescu’s ouster, Romania’s government-run health care system combined with the lack of food and medicine to exact a heavy toll on her health.

“She came (when she was) very sick, because the doctors…they couldn’t fix her,” he said, explaining that she weighed only 90 pounds upon arrival.

Twenty-two years later, her son said, “she’s living like heaven,” thanks to good food and good medicine in the United States.

Asked to share her worst memory of communism, the 74-year-old used her native tongue to speak volumes via her son who translated in his own thick, Romanian accent.

“There was no freedom traveling,” she said.  “No food. No heat.  The worst.  You cannot imagine.

“People don’t get it,” she continued, “what it’s like to live without heat in the winter time. No food on the shelves in the store.  No medicine either.”

But in the United States, she explained, things are much different.

“I have freedom, first thing,” she said, adding that she doesn’t have any problems with doctors and enjoys plenty of food, heat and even air conditioning.”

More than anything else, however, she attended the rally with her son because she doesn’t want to lose the things she enjoys so much in the United States.

Not surprisingly, her advice for Americans is simple:  “Show up and fight for freedom.  Wake up by November, because if you don’t, you’re not going to have any rights.

“You give one right (and) they go for another one,” she said, adding she hope everything will stay the same.

Greg Grigore, a husband, father and grandfather, agrees with his mother.

“We have to be tough,” he said.  “We can’t let them take over us.

“You let ‘em have one finger, they take your whole hand.”

Ever the optimist, Grigore exhibits great passion about the motives which prompt him to spend weekend afternoons on a street corner half a world away from the country of his birth. Until he’s rendered incapable of fighting the good fight, I expect to see him at many more pro-freedom rallies in the days and weeks ahead, standing alongside other first-generation Americans in cities like O’Fallon.

To read more about the anti-socialism rallies in O’Fallon, click here.

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