Just some early morning thoughts from me to you…
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
John 15: 12-13 (NIV)“Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, Jesus Christ, and the American soldier. One died for your soul; the other for your freedom.”
Author Unknown“Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty…Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”
President John F. Kennedy – Inaugural Address on January 20, 1961
The morning breeze was soft and cool as I posted our American flag in its place of honor and walked on to retrieve the morning paper.
Memorial Day is always an emotional day.
Many of us find it hard to talk about and express what we are feeling while emotions pour forth from the past as we reflect on the lives we pause to honor today.
American heroes. Heroes who blessed America.
Are we worthy of what they did, and the lives they gave, for you and for me?
I want my Granddaughters, and children and grandchildren everywhere, to know and respect the service and sacrifice of the heroes who have gone before them and others who stood, and those who continue to stand in the gap for them today. Every generation must know—through accounts of our history, of what actually occurred, not what is politically correct—but that which is true, which we must never forget.
American heroes. To celebrate, honor, and forever remember.
Beginning in 1866 with the placing of some flowers on the graves of some of our Civil War veterans, what we today acknowledge as Memorial Day is highlighted—and has been since the dedication in 1911 of The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery—by the President’s placing of a wreath at that Tomb which contains the inscription which reads—
“Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.”
American heroes. They paid the price for us.
Are we worthy of the sacrifice of their lives?
So many, for so long, have paid the price for us, beginning at Bunker Hill and Lexington and Concord and down through Valley Forge. They made the first payment for us. And that payment has been kept up to date through the Argonne, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Tarawa, Pusan, and Pork Chop Hill, and across a thousand hills in Southeast Asia and the burning sands of the Persian Gulf and Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, and so many other places through today.
American heroes. They paid the price for us.
And on days like today, we need to remember the heritage they left. Some never came back, others came back on stretchers, or on crutches, in wheelchairs, and in boxes, while still others were spit upon and ridiculed. Heroes forever scarred and crippled, as well as those whose bodies lie beneath row after row of white crosses at the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, and thousands of cemeteries across this country and world. Heroes who fought and died so that you and I might live today in freedom.
American heroes.
And the families of those heroes, and others who served, and still serve as they did, see what is happening in some parts of our country, with its lack of civility and support for America. With media pundits, self-serving interest groups, administrators, and professors on college campuses indoctrinating students, sports venues, religious settings, and many politicians concerned only with re-election—discarding the values, traditions, and foundations of America, rather than together as Americans honoring and remembering those who gave their lives for us, while lifting America to all it can be under God.
You can’t help but wonder whether those American heroes we honor today, would be asking whether it was worth it to have given up their tomorrows so that we could live in freedom today. Was it worth it to storm Tarawa and lose a leg there? Was it worth it to storm Iwo Jima, or fight in Vietnam and lose a buddy there? Was it worth it to fight blinding sandstorms to liberate a people from fear, mutilation, and death?
And on days like today, we must make the answer—
“Yes, by God, it was worth it, and we shall never forget the price you paid for us.”
For you see, liberty may be a heritage, as my Granddaughters, and men, women and children around our country enjoy—but it is never a gift. The liberty we enjoy today is not a gift—it has been paid for at great price.
America will stand as a place of liberty and equality, justice and freedom, only as long as there are men and women, children and young people—generation after generation—who resolve that these dead we remember on Memorial Day, shall not have died in vain, and who themselves are willing to pay the price and stand up for America.
American heroes. They paid the price for us.
May our lives, and our efforts, be worthy of the honor and sacrifice of their lives.
And may God continue to bless America.
In His Name–Scott
Memorial Day. Now, listen to, watch, and be inspired to Never Forget by this video and song “Some Gave All” sung by Billy Ray Cyrus.”
