If you stand on the banks of the Monongahela River just south of Pittsburgh, you can still hear the echoes of an America that used to build things. It is a quiet testament to a bygone era, the kind of place where the skeletal remains of old factories, once giant sentinels along the rivers, serve as a backdrop to everyday life.

For decades, the story written about river towns in post-industrial Pennsylvania and Ohio, or places like Macomb County, Michigan, and the small communities outside of Fort Worth, Texas, has been one of decline.

It is a familiar, weary Beltway narrative about the Rust Belt and the forgotten middle. But if you actually pull up a chair, talk to the people on Main Street, and look past the talking heads on cable news, you will find that the American spirit has never truly left. It was just waiting for the right spark.

That spark arrived with the launch of "Build Freedom," a new federal initiative out of the U.S. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Industrial Base Policy that is designed to promote skilled trades in the United States.

Build Freedom launched last week in Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania, with more states coming on later this year.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Mike Rowe said that the Department of War recognizes the urgent need to close the skills gap and strengthen America's defense manufacturing and industrial base. "And this initiative will provide opportunities for people to get skilled-trades........

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