Posted on 05/12/2002 12:23:08 PM PDT by redrock
It was a somewhat typical New England spring day.
Ripe with the promise of summer....and of a change...a very profound change.
The men hugged their wives and children...some for the last time...and, as they had promised..(at a time when honour actually MEANT something), gathered at the village green.
Armed with various weapons....and with various degrees of purpose...they stood in line facing the finest light infantry in the world.
Looking back thru history......you have to ask yourself a question.
What do we (as the inheritors of their resolve..indeed of their dream).....owe them??????
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Around 75 years later....a battle line of Union soldiers was holding on to a small rocky knoll...barely.
...and charging up the knoll (some call it a hill) were other soldiers...bent on taking control of that rocky area.
BOTH battle lines were composed of Americans....
BOTH battle lines were inheritors of the American Dream........
BOTH battle lines .....struggling for the very soul of that American Dream.
...and the question remains...what do we owe those men ???
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50 some odd years later...a man named 'Jack' (tall....very tall..and skinny) was in a trench in France....feeling very frightened...and yet.....fighting as hard as he could against a German attack.
Feeling the mustard gas start to take hold of his lungs...and standing his ground...firing his weapon as fast as he could...feeling even the stock get hot.
...and the question must be again asked.....what do we owe those men????.
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Fast forward...to the Battle of the Bulge....in WWII. A man named Leonard is shivering in the snow and cold...afraid.
He has fought for days with no warm food (actually very little food at all)...and has been cold the entire time. He has been in Bastogne for a week...has seen it filled with troops running for their lives....has seen tanks grind men..friends...beneath their treads.
He has witnessed the artillery pounding the buildings around him to dust.......
...and still he stays...and fights.
He has made a decision ...
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A few years later...a man named Robert..who dreamed as a child in Oklahoma of being a Marine.....wonders if he will ever get warm again...wonders if he will ever return home alive.
...and knows that at Chosen .....everyone wondered the same thing.
...and still he stayed and fought...cold....hungry.
Watching his friends dead frozen bodies be stacked like cordwood.
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You need to get up from your chair...and walk outside in the open air.
Kneel down and feel the earth....pick up a handfull...and roll it around.
Savour it.....and know that every bit has been paid for.
Paid for with the blood of those made a decision.
Paid for with the blood of those who decided that this Nation...with a beginning so dedicated to the idea that each and every one of us is endowed from our Creator with the Right to live our lives the way we deem...and that each and every one of us is also endowed by that same Creator with the Responsibility for that life.....was worth fighting for.
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...and so the question remains.....
What do we owe them????
We owe them everything......and nothing.
We owe them no rewards...no statues....no long winded speeches by self-serving politicians. (even Lincoln understood.........the very act of standing up and fighting for your beliefs negates all words)
But......we DO owe them........
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It is NOT about food and beer.
It IS about REMEMBERING.
REMEMBERING those who have given their all...so that we might be Free....
and just exactly what WE owe them.
redrock
redrock
redrock
redrock
redrock
"AMERICA REMEMBERS": VetsCor/FRN Memorial Day Project
National Cemeteries, Memorial Day Ceremonies, & Military Installation Locators
Kinda consider it my duty.
redrock
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Listen to ``Taps" |
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The bugle call Taps had its origins on a battlefield of the Civil War. After the Union suffered a large number of casualties in a battle near Richmond, Virginia, Brigade Commander Colonel Daniel Butterfield reflected with sadness upon the men he had lost. Unable to compose music, he hummed a melody which his aide wrote down in musical notation. The company bugler played it that night to honor their dead comrades. It was officially recognized by the United States Army in 1874. Accompanied by the drumbeat, Muffled Ruffles, it is the highest honor given to those who have died in service to our country. |
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redrock
redrock
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