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IN FLANDERS FIELDS
 Captain John D. McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands, we throw
The torch – be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Do our children and grandchildren today know the meaning behind these words and what “The Torch” represents? Are we and they even interested in catching “The Torch” thrown from the failing hands of Patriots then and now?

I have pondered what to write today with Veterans Day tomorrow. Somehow I even wondered if it is important anymore. In the rush-rush world that we live in nothing seems to have real value particularly with the social-networking, younger-generation crowd. They are tuned into iPods, Facebook and Twitter but seem to have forgotten, if they ever learned, the principles and values that made this country great and the price others have paid that they might be tuned-in.

What do they know of Lexington, Concord and the “shot heard round the world?” What do they know of “one if by land and two if by sea?” What do they know of winter at Valley Forge? What do they know of 56 men who pledged their lives, their fortune and their sacred honor? All of these, who with reliance on God’s Almighty hand, caused the birth of a new nation. The greatest nation the world has ever known and which would for centuries be a beacon of hope and freedom. A Constitutional Republic rooted and grounded in Judeo-Christian principles enshrined in our founding documents – The Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights.

What do they know of Antietam, Manassas, Chickamauga or Gettysburg? Where father fought against son and brother against brother? What do they know of their great struggle and the price so many paid “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

What do they know of Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, Marne or Meuse-Argonne and our effort “to make the world safe for democracy?” What do they know of the ELEVENTH HOUR, the ELEVENTH DAY, and the ELEVENTH MONTH? What do they know of Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea or Midway? What do they know of Bataan, Iwo Jima or D-Day? What do they know of the forgotten war – Korea? What do they know of their great-grandfathers’ efforts to preserve freedom throughout the world that they might continue to enjoy freedom? What do they know of grandfathers, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, and siblings who have continued the fight for freedom and liberty in Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan? But more importantly what are we doing to teach them?

Tomorrow will you be taking them to a Veterans Day Parade, a program or a ceremony to honor those who “gave the last full measure of devotion” for freedom? Or will the cost of freedom once again go unacknowledged by you and yours? Sixty years ago, in my childhood, such activities were common, but today they seem to be all but forgotten much like the grey-haired old soldiers who never die but just fade away.

Many of us today are bemoaning the loss of freedom we are experiencing in our Republic because of the Progressives, of both parties, efforts to move us toward a Welfare Socialist State. Many ask but what can I do? One thing that can be done is to return to the Judeo-Christian principles that made us a nation in the first place. It is time for us, as individuals and as a nation, to remember the challenge given by President Abraham Lincoln at the Gettysburg National Cemetery dedication:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

May God Bless and Save the United States of America!

 

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