Memorial Day

Ronald Reagan reminded us,

“We didn’t pass (freedom) to our children in the bloodstream~It must be fought for, protected & handed on for them to do the same”

Liberty is a stewardship, a sacred birthright from our ancestors. We are obliged to nurture and; protect it and; pass it intact to our posterity.  Should this generation of Americans allow ease, ignorance, fear or ANYTHING to rob our posterity of the freedoms our ancestors sacrificed so much to pass on to us, we will deserve the scorn of the ages we will receive.

Memorial Day is a time to pause and reflect on the liberty that gives us life.  A time to give thanks for our liberty and express our gratitude to those who have personally sacrificed so much to win it and protect and preserve it for us.

Mohandas Gandhi Observed:

“Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?”

How does one place a value on liberty?  I suppose one way that would win the approval of those who determine Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) would be to total up the cost.  What has been been spent to acquire and maintain our freedoms to date?

As I contemplate this, my mind rebels at the concept.  The value of the blood that has been spilled in the wars and conflicts since colonial times alone is beyond all comprehension. Add to that the lives that have been muted by grievous physical and mental injuries, the lifetimes of opportunities and happiness that were laid upon the altar of our freedoms.  Think of the mothers and wives that sent their sons and husbands off to war and the overwhelming hardships they must have faced as they struggled to keep the home fires burning, the children fed,clothed and educated and the wartime economy going without the help and support of their partner.  What about the lonely, tear filled nights and barren, exhausting, fright filled days?  Imagine the children who spent fearful months, even years praying for daddy to return, and those who never saw their father again.

Think of the “wretched refuse” of foreign shores, the human beings in whom the hunger for freedom became so fierce that they were willing to leave all that was familiar, all those that they loved, and trade it for the great unknown as they crossed rivers and oceans and risked their very lives to reach this land of hope and freedom.  If you live here, in the USA, you or someone somewhere in your ancestral past summoned the courage to sacrifice the known and take up the hardships and risks of the journey into the unknown for the hope of freedom for themselves and their posterity (that would be you).

Our country’s greatest danger is the complacency of us, its citizens.  We are lost when we begin to take our freedoms for granted.  This:

• Allows us to believe lying politicians even after they have proven over and over that they cannot be trusted
• Causes us to vote based on sound bytes and empty promises that confirm what what we wish to be true
• Anesthetizes our sense of danger so that we fail to recognize erosion of our liberties
• Prevents our recognition of seemingly justified growth in government power as preparation and positioning by scheming, power drunk politicians to ultimately relieve us of our freedoms
• instills us with a false sense of security and well being.   Like the proverbial frog-in-a-pot we enjoy the pleasant water until it is too late and we are frog soup

It is our prayer this Memorial Day, that every American will contemplate our priceless freedom and the unfathomable sacrifices of our fore bearers that make it possible.  That we will treasure our liberties and refuse to take them for granted.  That we will employ a healthy skepticism of all who would lead us and show zero tolerance for government increasing its power over our lives.

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