(Monday Update: Michelle Malkin has a link roundup of other Memorial Day tributes around the blogosphere. Check the trackbacks here for other tributes.)
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I originally posted the following message back on August 11, 2005 - and wanted to re-post it today, in honor of Memorial Day. Though my message included a tribute to those still serving, it also applies to the families of those who have lost loved ones in wars past and present - those who made the ultimate sacrifice defending our country, our flag, and what our flag symbolizes.
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God bless you, young man 8/11/2005
The adorable young gentleman you see to the right is 1 year-old Alex Montgomery. Alex’s father, US Marine Lance Corporal Brian Montgomery, was killed August 1st while serving honorably in Iraq.
It is photos like these that break my heart. I know that this young man will grow up without his father. He’ll get to know him through stories told by his mother and other family members and friends, who no doubt will shower little Alex with discussions about their time spent with his father. Alex: your father was a hero.
To the families of our men and women serving overseas, I’d like to offer the sincerest thank you I possibly can, from the bottom of my heart. Obviously, the lions share of the burden of this war is shouldered by our soldiers, but the families aren’t far behind in that. From the moment their loved one(s) enlist, to the endless worrying day and night when they are sent overseas to fight for our country, the worry is always there. They are the ones who pray they don’t get that midnight phone call, or afternoon knock at the door.
I know my thank you isn’t much, and it certainly can’t bring Alex’s father back, but it’s one of many thank yous out there that millions in this country express in many ways in appreciation and respect for the service of your loved one(s). I’m sitting here today typing this because of honorable soldiers past and present who have fought for, and in some cases made the ultimate sacrifices, for me and my fellow citizens to have this freedom. Former Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) said it best here:
Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don’t just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.
For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.
It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.
Your sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers are not occupiers - they are liberators. The ultimate sacrifices made are not in vain. Your loved ones will rightly be viewed as heroes forever. Again, thank you and God bless.
I urge anyone wanting to express their show of support (via written means or care packages, etc) to please click here. Most important of all: pray. Our troops need our support now - and always. Because freedom isn’t free.
Thanks, ST!
Comment by benning @ 5/28/2006 - 5:10 pm
I went to hear Walt Cunningham Saturday at the local travelling NASA exhibit. He said that freedom is not free and that progress has to be paid for. He reminded us that the Apollo 1 astronauts paid that price for the Lunar program.
Today we remember those who paid the price for us to be free,
Comment by PCD @ 5/28/2006 - 5:57 pm
I’m doing more than just remembering…
Comment by camojack @ 5/28/2006 - 9:00 pm
Great stuff camojack!
Comment by CZ @ 5/29/2006 - 9:51 am
- We’ve had a good holiday weekend here in America’s “2nd Hawaii”. Saturday I broke my feet and my bank account, treating my son to a 14 hour day at the local Sea World for his “sweet 16″ Bday. Slepping through 25 miles of exhibits with three Godzillateens in tow, with the fun rides, great Calypso smoked barbacue, and of course the obligatory endless shopping for dust collector nicknacks.
- Today, after having partially recovered sufficiently to move the bod again, my son and I took a drive out to Point Loma, to the National WWII Memorial Cemetary, where some 50,000+ small white crosses line a half mile of green grasslands on both sides of the peninsula in long 1000 cross rows layed end to end, and placed American flags on several gravesites. They had an honor guard, and gun salute for the soldiers/sailors/marines/airman lost in the war. It was a typical brilliant, azure sky, gorgeous ocean, sunlit, postcard day, with gentle sea breezes, and 71 degree weather for the occassion.
- We also stopped by the cross on Soledad Mountain that the Atheists are trying so hard to pull down. A small group of the “non-believers” showed up with protest signs. One guy was yelling, “Christians go home”. I yelled at him “Do you ever stop for a minute to think you couldn’t do this if these people hadn’t died for your sorry ass?”. He just ignored me. They got booed and yelled at so loudly they stayed for just a few minutes and then turned tail and ran off.
- All in all, the whole weekend makes you proud to be an American, knowing so many died so everyone of us, even the idiotarian creeps among us, are free to live our lives in anyway we choose to.
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 5/29/2006 - 1:47 pm
Outstanding camojack! What a fantastic post!
I had the honor and privilige of working beside the heroes of our military and regardless of what happened to me, I would not trade that experience for anything in the world.
May God Bless all of our men and women of our military, past and present.
Thank you to all those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice around the globe.
Comment by NC Cop @ 5/29/2006 - 2:06 pm
- Bush finally gets a pair on at least one issue…
President Bush, marking Memorial Day with a speech paying tribute to fighting men and women lost in war, signed into law Monday a bill that keeps demonstrators from disrupting military funerals.
In advance of his speech and a wreath-laying at America’s most hallowed burial ground for military heroes, Bush signed the “Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act.” This was largely in response to the activities of a Kansas church group that has staged protests at military funerals around the country, claiming the deaths symbolized God’s anger at U.S. tolerance of homosexuals.
The new law bars protests within 300 feet of the entrance of a national cemetery and within 150 feet of a road into the cemetery. This restriction applies an hour before until an hour after a funeral. Those violating the act would face up to a $100,000 fine and up to a year in prison.
Monday’s observance at Arlington National Cemetery was not a funeral, so demonstrators were free to speak their minds at the site.
And several did.
Approximately 10 people from the Washington, D.C., chapter of FreeRepublic.com, a self-styled grass roots conservative group, held signs at the entrance of the cemetery supporting U.S. troops. A large sign held by several people said, “God bless our troops, defenders of freedom, American heroes.”
They were faced off against a handful of anti-gay protesters who stood across a four-lane highway as people headed toward the national burial grounds.
The FreeRepublic.com group was trying to counter demonstrations by the Kansas-based group, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps. He previously had organized protests against those who died of AIDS and gay murder victim Matthew Shepard.
In an interview at the time the House passed the bill that Bush signed Monday, Phelps charged that Congress was “blatantly violating” his First Amendment rights. He said that if became law, he would continue to demonstrate but would abide by the law’s restrictions.
Bush signed a second bill Monday that allows combat troops to deposit tax-free pay into individual retirement accounts. Supporters of the legislation argued that rules governing these accounts were punishing soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq who earn only tax-free combat pay.
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 5/29/2006 - 4:46 pm
Thanks CZ and NC Cop…it was an honor.
Comment by camojack @ 5/29/2006 - 11:41 pm
- Finally had a chance to run over and check your piece. Absolutely excellance in writing camojack.
- Thats why, in pictures and indelible words of bravery from a family thats paid the price for real, instead of lip service and self serving theories, America will never succumb to our enemies from without OR from within. An treasure of a post for this memorial day of tribute to all our courageous brave sons and daughters.
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 5/30/2006 - 12:21 am