Veterans DayAssembly

you may ask, why do you take an oath to defend a document that was written in the late 1700s? Well, with miniscule exceptions, human-kind has not lived in a free society for the 10,000 years or so of recorded history. Mankind has been ruled by kings, chiefs, emperors, dictators, strong men, thugs, and thieves. Most of the world is not free or does not have a self-determined government.

The shining example of human freedom, the right to live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is this noble experiment called The United States of America. The freedom we enjoy is guaranteed by the document called The Constitution. As long as it stands in effect, we are free. If it falls, we lose our liberty. So, the oath veterans take to protect our liberty, our freedom, our inalienable rights at all costs and that can be a difficult time at times. But that is the task that men and women and we call veterans undertake.

If you study the history of the United States, you come to one very inconvenient fact. The price of liberty and freedom is blood, sweat, and tears. Our enemies are many and our history shows we must constantly be ready to defend our way of life. Without our military veterans and their sacrifices, our noble experiment and self-determined government, as (Abraham) Lincoln said, ‘conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal’ would have long since perished from the earth.

So, let me put it very simply. No sane person wants armed military conflict. But for good people to be free; for our citizens to sleep soundly in their beds at night, dedicated men and women must stand guard and be willing to do violence on their behalf.

My father’s family came to this country from Germany in the early 1840s to escape economic devastation caused by Napoleon (Bonaparte) in the early part of that century and the lack of opportunity and freedom allowed by those who replaced him. Since that time, we have records that show that some member of our family has served in most every conflict, police action, dustup, or war in our nation’s history. I obviously do not know all of them, but I have met a few.

My great uncle Bill, for whom I am named, was killed in action in 1942 when his destroyer escorting a convoy to England was torpedoed by a German UBoat in the North Atlantic. We still have his Purple Heart.

My great uncle Russell had four fingers machine-gunned-off on Omaha Beach, but he stayed on the line for three days with little covering the wound.

My great uncle Kenneth lost two toes to frostbite in Korea staying at his machine gun position in 20 degree weather for 18 hours during multiple Red Chinese and North Korean wave of attacks.

My grandfather, who suffered from malaria most of his life which he contracted when his unit was cut off from the Solomon Islands in 1944 for three days without water. He also contracted about two pounds of shrapnel during that breakout, but (Continued on page 6)