Memorial Day, 2022

"There they now stood, side by side...with arms in their hands, silent and fearless, willing to shed their blood for their rights...John Parker, the strongest and best wrestler in Lexington, had promised never to run from the British troops; and he kept his vow. A wound brought him on his knees. Having discharged his gun, he was preparing to load it again, when he was stabbed by a bayonet, and lay on the post which he took at the morning's drumbeat..."--Historian George Bancroft, founder of the Naval Academy, on the Battle of Lexington Green, where 70-some Minute Men faced 700 British Regulars, Apr. 19, 1775.

The Journey Home

"you guys are my world.”

Meet Your Son

One More Night

Fallen U.S. Marine 2nd Lt. James Cathey and his wife Katherine with their unborn son.

Their story is told through Todd Heisler's 2017 Pulitzer photographs.

And now "the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans" again. These are the New Centurions, the giants who make our Age possible. Thank you, Lt. Cathey and Mrs. Cathey. Thank you, our patriots, our brothers and our sisters, on behalf of a grateful nation...and a grateful me.

The "strewing with flowers..."

Mark Steyn:  The Loss of Proportion - Memorial Day, 2004

"Memorial Day in my corner of New Hampshire is always the same. A clutch of veterans from the Second World War to the Gulf march round the common, followed by the town band, and the scouts, and the fifth-graders. The band plays "Anchors Aweigh," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," "God Bless America" and, in an alarming nod to modernity, Ray Stevens' "Everything Is Beautiful (In Its Own Way)" (Billboard No. 1, May 1970). One of the town's selectmen gives a short speech, so do a couple of representatives from state organizations, and then the fifth-graders recite the Gettsyburg Address and the Great War's great poetry. There's a brief prayer and a three-gun salute, exciting the dogs and babies. Wreaths are laid. And then the crowd wends slowly up the hill to the Legion hut for ice cream, and a few veterans wonder, as they always do, if anybody understands what they did, and why they did it.

Before the First World War, it was called Decoration Day - a day for going to the cemetery and "strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion." Some decorated the resting places of fallen family members; others adopted for a day the graves of those who died too young to leave any descendants.

I wish we still did that. Lincoln's "mystic chords of memory" are difficult to hear in the din of the modern world, and one of the best ways to do it is to stand before an old headstone, read the name, and wonder at the young life compressed into those brute dates: 1840-1862. 1843-1864.

In my local cemetery, there's a monument over three graves, forebears of my hardworking assistant, though I didn't know that the time I first came across them. Turner Grant, his cousin John Gilbert and his sister's fiance Charles Lovejoy had been friends since boyhood and all three enlisted on the same day. Charles died on March 5, 1863, Turner on March 6, and John on March 11. Nothing splendid or heroic. They were tentmates in Virginia, and there was an outbreak of measles in the camp.

For some reason, there was a bureaucratic mixup and the army neglected to inform the families. Then, on their final journey home, the bodies were taken off the train at the wrong town. It was a Saturday afternoon and the stationmaster didn't want the caskets sitting there all weekend. So a man who knew where the Grants lived offered to take them up to the next town and drop them off on Sunday morning.

When he arrived, the family was at church, so he unloaded the coffins from his buggy and left without a word or a note to anyone. Imagine coming home from Sunday worship and finding three caskets waiting on the porch. Imagine being young Caroline Grant, and those caskets contain the bodies of your brother, your cousin and the man to whom you're betrothed.

That's a hell of a story behind the bald dates on three tombstones.".......

They answered the call. They gave it all. And we remember them. We honor their sacrifice by standing for that Liberty today and opposing in our time the tyranny they opposed in theirs.

Lee Harris: 

"Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe. . . . They forget that in time of danger, in the face of the Enemy, they must trust and confide in each other, or perish. They forget, in short, that there has ever been a category of human experience called the Enemy. And that, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the Enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary. An enemy was just a friend we hadn't done enough for -- yet. Or perhaps there had been a misunderstanding, or an oversight on our part -- something that we could correct. And this means that that our first task is that we must try to grasp what the concept of the Enemy really means. The Enemy is someone who is willing to die in order to kill you. And while it is true that the Enemy always hates us for a reason -- it is his reason, and not ours.".......

But what happens when the Enemy is Within, "Domestick" and allied with the Foreign, as all of our Founding Fathers warned?

America’s Great Seal as designed by Benjamin Franklin in August, 1776. Jefferson also believed this, using the phrase on his own seal.

     “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God”

“Rays from a Pillar of Fire in the Clouds reaching to Moses.”

We bind satan, all his minions and all his works in High Places. We bind the spirit of Endless War, of pedophilia and perversion, of child sacrifice, of mad science, of treachery, of bribery, of betrayal, of race hatred, of oppression, of murder, of sedition and of treason. Be LOOSED RIGHT NOW and be cast to the bottom of the sea, in the Mighty Name of Christ Jesus, the Name above all names, Amen and Amen.

"This weekend, we mark the [156th] anniversary of the first official observation of the holiday we now call Memorial Day, as established by General John A. Logan’s “General Order No. 11” of the Grand Army of the Republic dated May 5, 1868. This order reads in part: “The 30th day of May 1868 is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers and otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.” Logan’s order in fact ratified a practice that was already widespread, both in the North and the South, in the years immediately following the Civil War.

It’s hard to get Americans in this day and age to remember the true meaning of Memorial Day. Alas, for too many, Memorial Day has come to mean nothing more than another three-day weekend, albeit the one on which the beaches open, signifying the beginning of summer. Unfortunately, the tendency to see the holiday as merely an opportunity to attend a weekend cook-out obscures even the vestiges of what the day was meant to observe: a solemn time, serving both as catharsis for those who fought and survived, and to ensure that those who follow will not forget the sacrifice of those who died that the American Republic and the principles that sustain it, might live. ... 

By all means, have a hot dog or a hamburger this weekend. If you’re close to a beach or a lake, take advantage of the nice weather and go. But on Memorial Day, take some time to remember the John Bobos and the Paul Ray Smiths who died to make your weekend possible."-- Mac Owens

And the rest of your year, for that matter.

The Actual President and First Lady place flags at Arlington, 2019 

Heavenly Father, we pray that soon, their brothers and sisters-in-arms will have a legitimate Commander-in-Chief again worthy of the title. 

Lord Jesus, in Your Name we pray, Amen and Amen.

John 15:11-17 The Message Bible

11-15 “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.

16 “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.

17 “But remember the root command: Love one another."

Rest in Peace, our American Brothers and Sisters