Thoughts.

Another memorial day stands just around the corner and as I continue to march toward my destiny, having achieved the sage age of 82 my thoughts turn to those days of my youth. Having survived by divine intervention both Korea and Vietnam old tapes slowly begin to play.

In my mind’s eye I can again see smiling faces, in the distance of time hear the cheerful batter of those I served with, who continue to live in my heart. The grueling demands of training seem so small now. The forced marches, the never ending sessions on the rifle range, the five mile runs each morning as we prepared our bodies and minds to engage other men, in another place in the demands of combat. Then that exposure to combat becomes another memory that continues to replay almost daily.

Do we stop to remember now those who we left behind in some foreign land or shipped home in their aluminum containers to grieving families? The precious freedom we arise to each morning is a costly privilege that has been purchased over the years by the sacrifices of our youth. And yet there are those in our nation today, many in very high places, who would cast this precious freedom aside in order to mold the peoples of this land into a dependent society. We must never allow this to become a reality. It is time for all Americans to arise and take back the precious freedoms they have exchanged for a small pot of porridge from big brother.

When this nation was formed the states each had explicit rights that were indelibly unalterable and yet we have allowed our national government to infringe on those precious rights. Chipping away much like a stone mason, taking one away small chip at a time until there very little of the original left.

I pray that our next Memorial Day finds this nation in the process of turning around and recovering those values we all once held so dear.

Yes, we were created as one nation under God and may we return once again to our founding roots.