Posted on 05/27/2002 7:16:50 AM PDT by Slam
Remember these heroes with gratitude when you fly your flag this Memorial Day.
Earlier this month I watched with a lump in my throat as my son-in-law, Anthony, graduated from college and solemnly swore to “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic….” as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force. He’s a smart guy, as his academic record attests, and he had his choice of any number of higher paying career fields with more visibility and family stability. Unlike his father-in-law, he will not be a pilot, so there does not appear to be an ulterior motive like dancing the wild blue with a supersonic angel.
I’m left with no other explanation for his motivation aside from his demonstrated selfless patriotism. He chose to go through ROTC at a time when the program is a covert operation on most college campuses, when allowed at all, in an alarming postmodern collegiate culture where whatever feels good goes…except God and soldiers, the chief and secondary causes of the free air we breathe.
This Memorial Day, with America again at war with no end in sight, I am thankful for both the quick and the dead soldiers who volunteered to buy my freedom, with their lives, if necessary. And this old vet is so proud of the patriot who married into his family that his bifocals fog as he types these words.
I fought in a war where military service was considered the proper reward of those too stupid to avoid it by those too cowardly to serve, where treasonous acts were lauded as heroic by the dodgers and media alike. In the current conflict, evidence abounds of a similar mindset building as some misguided pundits try to justify the most diabolical act ever perpetrated against Americans on American soil. As in the last century, with the passage of time and ongoing battles and no quick victory forthcoming, the molehills of minimal sacrifice, required of citizens in a nation at war, will be perceived by some as mountains. Then the self-indulgent segment of the electorate will be demonstrating in the streets again. This day I am also thankful that our nation has always been blessed with enough heroes to preserve the freedom of those who take freedom for granted. May it always be so.
This Memorial Day, 2002, our honored dead include thousands of recently incinerated innocents who died in a war our enemy openly declared but we chose to ignore in our complacency and arrogant assumption of invincibility. This atrocity was a wake-up call of unimaginable malevolence by depraved men with the demonic audacity to call themselves “Holy Warriors.” The battle line of this new kind of war is a satanic global web that stretches from the farthest point on earth, past the ruins of two of the most visible monuments of our unprecedented democratic prosperity, to the doorstep of every family in America. We are all combatants now. The combat zone is our own neighborhood…and if our nation is to survive we need mentoring in duty, honor, and country from our uniformed brethren.
The enemy now lives among us, taking advantage of our generosity and open arms and refusal to acknowledge the degree of hate that is capable of residing in the human heart. Such hate spawned a fiendishly clever attack that sidestepped the most powerful military force extant. It is just the opening salvo. The enemy conscripts were dupes who were led to believe their suicidal slaughter of innocents was earning them a heavenly reward—proof that Satan’s legions are still rampant on the planet…and soldiers are still vital to our survival.
Having recently witnessed death so awful our horrified minds strive to stifle the images; the Stars and Stripes at half-mast today are a vivid reminder that freedom is neither freely gained nor freely maintained. It was purchased and has been protected in every age since Lexington Common by the blood of thousands of patriots who voluntarily, sacrificially served a cause greater than themselves, citizens with the courage to stand up like the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, and say, “Here am I. Send me.”
Remember these heroes with gratitude when you fly your flag this Memorial Day. Old Glory got it all from them.
RE: JD Wetterling lives and writes at Ridge Haven, the PCA Conference and Retreat Center, where he is Resident Manager.
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