Memorial Day; honor their sacrifice

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. . . . I have called you friends . . .
—John 15:13, 15

In honor of Memorial Day, there will be parades and flowers laid at gravesites of people who lost their lives serving our country all around the nation. There has never been a time that I have been more accutely aware of the problems before our honorable service men and women as they go about the notable duties of serving our country and protecting our God given freedoms. Too many people, it seems, are living in some kind of a fantasyworld where there is no war and there are no evil people.

But for some, on 9/11, that idea changed forever when 19 islamist crazies crashed the towers and hit the pentagon, hoping that in the process of taking their own lives, they would, in the spirit of Islamofacism, take many Americans with them and drive a sword straight into the belly of the infidel.

You can recognize fallen veterans and their families by joining with other Patriots placing flags at your nearest National Cemetery (generally done on Saturday before Memorial Day). Remember to pause at 1500 (your local time) on Memorial Day, and offer remembrance and prayer for these great Patriots.

Additionally, please show your support for our troops standing in harm’s way today by signing “An Open Letter in Support of America’s Armed Forces”

Today there are representatives of newer generations laying beside those who fought in Korea, in Vietnam, WWII, and WWI; they are those who have fought against the terrorists in the middle east who would see us destroyed just the same as their ideological brothers, the Nazis in the ’30’s. Let us pray that we are able to prevail over this threat, although much more sinister, as representatives exist in cells right here in the US, plotting our destruction, and imams and clerics call for our destruction in American mosques.

God be with all of our service men and women.

“Good people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”

Rough Men

There’s a character trait that’s decided by fate
Comes (sadly) to many, far too faint, far too late.
They won’t face the aggressor, stand up to his ire
They have not the will to fight his fire with fire.
So they bend over backwards to see all sides as fair,
Till they’re faced with dragon breath fire in their hair.
Like our brethren in France, who’d know better than we,
Yet seem never to learn, seem doomed never to see.

Yes, it seems there are some who’re determined by fate,
To possess not the courage to step up to the plate,
Who shrink from all threat because nothing’s worth war.
But how can they know lest they’ve been there before?
Thank God some have courage, the will, yes, the grace,
To stand for the shirkers, stand strong in their place.
Thank God we have stalwarts who’ll stand for us all,
Who will rise to the challenge at their nation’s call.

The faint-hearted, who fear, whose reaction is flight,
Have no comprehension of those who will fight.
To hide their own trepidation they attempt to demean
The rough men, who defend them, as barbaric, obscene.
Yet these rough men stand ready, hard weapons to hand,
To put placaters behind them, draw a line in the sand,
To preserve for the peaceniks what they won’t defend,
So their own unearned freedom won’t perish, won’t end.

To appeasers, rough men are coarse government tools.
To rough men, appeasers are dumb delusional fools.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66