“Freedom”

“Freedom”

My friends if you ever wondered what freedom means just go by a local cemetery or military cemetery.  Look at the graves that gave the colonies freedom from Great Britain.  Look at those graves that protected her against Great Britain in the War of 1812.  Those graves that were the resting places of those defenders of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas of 1836.  The graves of the troops lost in the U.S.-Mexican War of 1846-1848.  Then the horrendous total of graves that came from the American Civil War between 1861-1865 which totaled over 700,000. There were places such as Bull Run, Shiloh, The Wilderness, Gettysburg, Sharpsburg, Chickamauga, Petersburg, The March to the Sea, just to name a few that people still remember and discuss to this day.  Then there were the soldiers who died taming the West in the 1870’s with losses such as Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Then the Spanish American War of 1898 that started with the
 sinking of the Battleship Maine in Havana Harbor, Cuba.  Then the Philippine war of 1899-1900.  A war began in Europe in 1914 that would begin costing the lives of Americans in ships going to Europe by the sinking of them by the German U-Boats.  The United States entered the Great War in April 1917 until it ended in 1918.  This was the World War One that took so many lives in the trenches of France.   Then only a few short years later we entered another even bigger war that was global that began in 1939 by the crazed dreams of a madman named Adlof Hitler.  We entered the war after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  This war was a horrible war that lasted until 1945 with the dropping of the Atomic Bombs to end the war that was called World War Two.  We fought in North Africa, Italy, from Normandy to Berlin, Germany.  We fought from islands in the Pacific known as the Philippines where we were defeated at Bataan, Corregidor, and then
 the Bataan death march that claimed thousands of men.  We fought at places like Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and many others.
Then with the dawning of the Atomic Age we then went into what would be known as a Cold War that lasted till the Soviet Union broke up.  But in between there were hot spots like the Korean War in the early 1950’s, Vietnam which was from the early sixties to we left Saigon in 1975.  A long black wall in Washington bares the names of the over 58,000 who died there.  Then we were involved with the war with the rebels in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and the Cubans in Grenada.  There was also the Marine Barracks suicide truck bomb in Beirut, Lebannon. We then went to the Middle East to fight Saddam Hussein of Iraq who had invaded Kuwait in 1991 and we drove him back into his country. Then, our fighting men and women went to the Balkans to support the war in Kosovo. Suicide bombers killed several on the U.S.S. Cole in the Middle East. We were attacked by a power seeking monster on our own homeland in New York on September 11, 2001 by the suicide terrorists of
 Osama Bin Laden.  This launched us into the War on Terror which continues to this day.  We have fought in Iraq to see the downfall of Saddam Hussein, we are fighting in Afghanistan, we sent a team into Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden, but more trouble is brewing with a new group known as ISIS.  The entire Middle East region continues to be a powder keg.
This is from the Bible of wars and rumors of wars that will come.  But this is also how we have kept our freedom.  Freedom is not bought freely it is through the blood of the many thousands over the years who gave their lives so that America would be free.  So, remember those graves on the hill over looking the beaches of Normandy, France; the graves all across the Pacific, and those graves here in the United States in places like Arlington Cemetery, Andersonville National Cemetery, Marietta National Cemetery and many more.  Stand for a few moments today and give honor to those who have fallen to give you this right.  We are the United States of America.  “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with Liberty and Justice for all.”  My Country ‘Tis of Thee Sweet land of liberty of thee I sing, Land where my Father died, Home of the Pilgrims Pride, From
 every mountainside let Freedom Ring.
Have a safe and blessed Memorial Day.

Pastor Dr. Mike Moon, 1st Lt. USAFSC Honorably Discharged.