What Memorial Day means to me:

What Memorial Day means to me:

Memorial day is a very special event to my family and me. Having been raised in a home of a Korean War era bombardier and by a man who watched his brothers (who also were his heroes) go off to fight in WWII patriotism was never an option.

Luckily however as I grew and traveled the world it grew from being the son of a veteran and a man that was in love with his country to being a man who had that love first hand for himself.

This blog is not here to argue politics so don’t try. It is my blog and today is yet another day (like all 365) that we honor the lost and the living that without whom, we have no freedom.

I have walked along the war torn parts of the world. I have looked upon the former Soviet Union with my own eyes and with those same eyes seen the abject poverty of the third world. I have seen the famished and the oppressed. I have given a speech in Russia and asked the kids how many were afraid of their government and seen all of them and the teachers lift their hands.

I have a friend that will not come back from Iraq and lost one on 9-11. I have heard my Mother talk of “blacking out” the windows of her home as a girl on the east coast of this glorious nation in fear that an attack would hit American soil.

We have stupidity from both republicans and democrats and we have politicized our borders rather than protect them and us. Our leaders argue about the mundane and ignore the relevant. We are a nation divided by agenda and torn by political correctness rather than doing what is right.

Yet…

We are a people that respond in crisis like no other. We can fight and argue yet when problems arise around the world we respond rather than react. We’ve sent more money than anyone in the world to respond to a Tsunami even though our enemies (inside and out) will say yet again we didn’t do enough.

Americans can debate (and I believe that debate is healthy and good) a war, yet provide for humanitarian efforts to bring children from Iraq for needed surgeries. We cry with the victims of London who once was our oppressor and marvel at the strength of an Iraqi business owner who opens each day on the streets of Baghdad and thanks a GI for their commitment to his land. We remember 9/11 while so many have forgotten and we shall never forget that although the world would have us seem like the bad guys for using the atomic bomb to end the senseless bloodshed of World War II we know that it was a war we didn’t want to be in and only joined when brutally attacked at Pearl Harbor.

America has so many faults and they transcend all genders, politics, and races. She is a place of diversity and yet she is ours. She has evolved from a rogue state having fled an oppressive monarchy and become a glorious light and beacon. Everywhere I have traveled around the world she is a bastion of hope. While the communists built walls to keep their people we must debate building walls to protect ours.

Our people are compassionate and our people are kind. Our nation is still glorious and before you point to the problems we have, remember: in Iraq (before the capture of their previous murdering dictator), Syria and Iran, before we liberated Germany and Italy and ended the reign of the Emperor that thought he was god (emphasis with a small g on purpose), and America stood up for the people in the former Soviet bloc. The people of this nation could argue and discuss and look at our internal issues without thoughts of being arrested, murdered and taken away. So many here debate our issues with a vile venom yet forgetting that in the world before our glorious Veterans showed up, those people didn’t have that right.

America is the greatest nation in the world. America is the shining city on the hill that Ronald Reagan said she was. We have problems  and I am not minimizing that. I just wonder how many people Hitler let berate him and debate the “validity” of his war. I haven’t checked but how many people in Iran are allowed to argue that their psychotic leader is wrong? How many Iraqis went on TV and said that Saddam was wrong for gassing all of the Kurds?

All of that is a gift. A gift from the America veteran. From their families that suffered the heartache, the fear and the pain of being away from the ones they loved. It is the child who will never see a parent and a parent that will never again see a child. It is a wife who has become a single mom while their spouse is away fighting a war. It is our friend that we played with as a child and we know that we won’t celebrate a fortieth birthday with. It knows that on Tuesday our children will go back to school, not just the boys, and get educations. It was the millions of Americans that could sleep in yesterday, and the millions that went to church. It is freedom. It is America.

I recently saw the movie “Flags of our Fathers.” It was the worst movie I have ever seen. I recommend it to you all. It was so realistic about WWII that my father who I mentioned earlier left the parking lot of the movie theater in tears as he recalled the pain and suffering that he and his mother went through in fear of his brothers safety. As we join today for potlucks, picnics and whatever today brings. Think of the veterans, think of their families and think of how truly fortunate you are to live here.  

For one day, today, can we stop the divide? May we stop being republicans and democrats? May we stop being black, or white or Latino or whatever ethnicity you are? May we today, remember that at the end of the day, we are Americans? We were founded on Judeo-Christian values yet we celebrate and protect the right of the Jew to pray to Yahweh, the Muslim to Allah, the Buddhist to Buddah and the atheist to mock them all.

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Given that land from the blood and sacrifice of the heroes who made this land great. We are a people that no matter what the secularists say believe in God and if you believe in him that means that we have to believe that today we can ask him to heal our land and our nation. We can ask him to bless the veteran and their family. We can ask that America sustain her strength and that we can be the nation our founding fathers envisioned and not lobbyists or special interest groups on either side.Â

If you hate what I have said then thank a Vet. If you have agreed then thank a Vet. If you are breathing as a U.S. citizen thank a Vet. God bless America and God bless our American Veterans and their families on this day.Â

America, I love you!

Thank you Dad, Uncle Don, Uncle Ernie, Uncle Roy, Uncle Frank, Unlce Bill and Uncle Dale…my own personal heroes!