Memorial Day is a time to remember and honor all those who have died in American wars, a total that the Department of Veterans Affairs puts at more than 1.1 million. More than 1.1 million lives were spent for my freedom to openly worship God without fear of persecution or imprisonment, vote in a presidential election, engage in capitalism at a vegetable stand at the end of my road, and actively pursue happiness according to my God-given interests and talents.
John 15:13 says “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
So if this great love has been shown to me, I have to ask myself this question:
How do I responsibly live out my life in light of the sacrifices over a half million men and women made for me?
While having an extended weekend to enjoy with my family is wonderful, including the BBQ’s, picnics and other festivities associated with Memorial Day, I can’t help but wonder why there isn’t more to this day of remembrance.
As a natural born citizen, I was never required to take an oath to uphold the laws and ideals of this land. It was implied the moment I took my first breath. Consider what immigrants applying for citizenship must swear to:
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
They must swear to support and defend the Constitution and yet I rarely consider my responsibility to do so. I live in the lap of spoiled American luxury where I’m comfortable letting the politicians handle my implied duty, occasionally complaining when a law is passed which I disagree with or dislike, but mostly blissfully ignorant of the subtle threats to the very thing our soldiers died for.
Perhaps Memorial Day should be observed by determining to recommit ourselves to the principles on which our soldiers made their last stand. Please consider the following essay written by Jeff Head from Petition Online:
The times that try the souls of American patriots and defenders of true liberty are no stranger to the sovereign union of the united States of America. From its founding, and the battles and campaigns that marked the tremendous struggle against the tyranny of England; through the crisis of the horrific “War between the States”; through the conflagrations which conspiring minds and tyrants drew it into in World Wars I and II; to the increasingly mortal moral, political, and spiritual decline and military squandering of the last 30 years; … the heart and soul of American patriots and their liberty have continuously been tried in the forges of sacrifice, commitment, duty and honor.
Of all of these, the decline of this Republic and every defining foundational principles upon which it rests over the last decades, are without doubt the most threatening. A free people cannot survive or endure in indolence, apathy, complacency, immorality, amorality, licentiousness and lasciviousness. Every ounce of reason in any virtuous and honorable heart cries out that to enjoy true liberty, a people must be moral and retain their virtue. Else, they will not know from whence their liberties derive. Else they will deny the heritage and birthright of the very derivation of their liberty. Else they will demand for themselves every indulgence, craving, vice and perversion imaginable at whatever cost. Else they will invite tyranny to either maintain a corrupted public order (at the point of the sword), or they will be trodden under by more powerful, more committed peoples who desire the land and its riches for themselves.
Such calamities have befallen this Republic and are its sad state today. Although largely untested as a people over the last fifty years in terms of physical discomfort and immediate threats to material wealth and perceived security, yet it has been threatened, attacked and largely overcome in its soul. What remains, unless somehow restored to the moral and virtuous character which attracted many to its shores for so long, is but an empty husk awaiting the inevitable physical storm which will topple it.
There are enemies who know this and who are basking in the near fulfillment of their plans to take advantage of this condition and benefit from it. Their vision of “World Governance” requires that the foundational principles upon which this nation rests, which are capable of producing and maintaining sovereign individuals, localities and States, bound together in an eternal union, must vanish from the earth. This would allow their socio-fascist “3rd Way” dominion to come about. Sadly, by all accounts, and by the very testimony that ones own eyes and senses impart with each passing day, their efforts have been largely successful.
But the principles upon which liberty is founded are true and eternal. They are endowed by the Creator upon all mankind. That same Creator watches over the affairs of nations. Whether one understands or comprehends this is immaterial to the truth of it. As long as such knowledge is held in the hearts and minds of moral and virtuous, reasoned individuals, restoration and ultimate triumph remain possible.
Let us be direct. The time for choosing a course of vigilance is likely past … but if it is not, then it must be now. If the people do not pay such a price in generous and copious amounts immediately, urgently … then soon the ultimate triumph of liberty will come only at the price of the blood of patriots and tyrants. Such conditions, history teaches us, will be couched in the suffering and death of millions.
Let all the complacent and apathetic take warning. Let conspiring and aspiring politicians who have anything other than the preservation of true liberty be forewarned. Let the power mongers hear the resolve of patriots and shake at the sound thereof. Let the decrepit and perverse beware and turn from their ways. Let tyrants fear for their lives. Let those whom would take advantage back away. Let foreign institutions and powers shrink from their wanton designs. As surely as night follows day, unless all such turn from their current path, and unless the hemorrhage of virtue is stemmed … a reckoning and a conflagration is coming. Its approach is etched on the collective consciousness.
Choose well what side of that conflagration one stands upon, for there is a wind rising, there is an awakening occurring in the hearts of a those who will not allow liberty and the principles upon which it rests, to go away quietly into the night. The collision of the forces of morality, virtue and liberty on the one hand, and indolence, self indulgence, vice and tyranny on the other hand is inevitable. It will be forced on the former by the latter. The only thing which can avoid a fiery collision will be the people as a whole, immediately welcoming and initiating a revival of morality and virtue which forces the tyrant and the decrepit out of the public eye and consideration by their very numbers. Otherwise, a dark storm will break upon this land and engulf it. The rapidity with which it will break, and the severity with which it will strike, will be an amazement and astonishment to all. The consequences which it metes out, and the report thereof, will become a crushing blow to the hearts and minds of those who must suffer through it, or even hear of it, until the contest is decided and liberty is restored to its true foundation.
From the unheard voices of tens of millions whose opportunity for life and liberty are snuffed out before being allowed to take a breath, from the voices of the thousands whose lives are being devastated or taken as a result of ever encroaching tyranny, from the wild hills of northern Idaho, from the fires of Waco, from the ruined skeletal walls in Oklahoma City, as a result of the lies, manipulations and deceptions of tyrants and the decrepit, a veritable chorus calling for a reckoning, calling for a return to the Constitutional intent of our founders is rising in its volume and its urgency. It is a sound that cannot, indeed, it is a sound that WILL NOT, go unheard or unheeded.
It is therefore evident that the full flavor of liberty will only be savored by those willing to undergo the hardship and travail of defending it. No principle or belief system, that was not worthy of sacrificing one’s all to maintain, was ever capable of producing the conviction, responsibility and moral virtue required for true liberty. That same Creator who endows upon all their unalienable rights to life, liberty and property, and who is the author of the morality and virtue which define the equitable exercise thereof, has set a high price on liberty which our generation must be prepared to account for. How will that accounting be made? … It is up to us.
In the words of one of the great founders, which words have sounded in the throats of patriots throughout our history as they faced the times which tried their souls, “Give me Liberty or Give me Death”.
“A free people cannot surive or endure in indolence, apathy, complacency, immorality, amorality, licentiousness and lasciviousness.”
Why is our nation worthy of sacrifice? And how can we ensure that our nation remains worthy? How can we, as American people, remain worthy of the ultimate sacrifice? The first question is answered by men and women brave enough to serve in our armed services. The second is to be answered by the American public, the citizens of this great nation. The third question is for each of us to ask ourselves. Are you living a life worth a soldier’s ultimate sacrifice?
After Memorial Day is over and you go back to work, dedicate yourself to making their sacrifice worthwhile. Take an interest and get involved in what it means to be an American. Help others understand the importance being an American and living out the American dream. We have life and liberty and must guard them both, but we are only provided the opportunity to pursue happiness, not happiness itself. Whether or not you achieve happiness is up to you, and not the responsibility of our government.
Your life, and mine, comes at a very high price. We cannot forget.
Below are some ways to honor all those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coastguardsmen — those who have refreshed the tree of liberty with their blood, indeed with their lives, so that we might remain the proud and free.
Military, Veterans & Patriotic Service Organizations of America
