Why Do We Give Thanks on Veteran’s Day?

This is the day we honor our veterans for their service to our country. It is a day that all political spectrums come together in thanks for the people that have served this greatest nation on earth. It is the greatest nation in a large part due to the strong desire there is in this country for freedom. We hold freedom as the most fundamental principle and right of every human being.

Every one of the founders of this nation was prepared to die for the cause; throwing off government control and creating the concept of self-rule. Up until that point it was the norm that government controlled people’s lives, and that birth right was the way it would always be. If you were born of royalty, someday you would rule the kingdom. The founders turned that concept upside down and created the miracle we call the United States of America, and its founding principles the US Constitution.

The founders knew freedom wasn’t free, and that it could only survive if the citizens were willing to fight, defend, and die for the cause. The founders expected a lot from the citizens and believed that once individuals were given freedom they would certainly be willing to defend that God given right. The founders believed in God and that certain rights were beyond the realm of man. They believed the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were precious and worth dying for.

The founders also knew that history was a great indicator of the future, and that human behavior had to be harnessed to protect those most basic rights. They harnessed them in limiting government and expanding individual freedom to the outer limits. They knew individuals could only prosper if they were allowed to freely create their path without government intervention. It worked for a hundred years. The last hundred years have been a return to the past that the founders were so intent on protecting us against.

Since FDR, we have seen a drift back to some utopian vision that the collective is more important than the individual. We have seen an expansion of government and a reduction in individual freedom as we have drifted away from the individual to a more powerful centralized government. If we look today it is such a stark contrast to our founding. A founding that took many lives in a revolution that changed the world. George Washington and his small band of troops set the example of how a powerful cause, freedom, could defeat the most powerful military in the world. He proved how individuals with a cause were the most powerful weapon in the fight for freedom. The spirit and hearts of the soldiers were more powerful than any mechanical weapon or fancy uniform.

Our military men and women have always answered the call to protect freedom. They have done miraculous things around the world and have been responsible for more freedom than any other entity in the world. These men and women are a shining beacon to others that when the cause is just, and the nation calls, they are willing to risk their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. They leave friends and family behind in the cause of freedom and defense.

While this small minority of military veterans has sacrificed so much in the defense of freedom, we need to ask - have we done our part to honor that sacrifice? Have we protected those freedoms by electing people that honor our constitution and the cause of freedom? Have we been diligent in monitoring the policies that have given us such prosperity and opportunity for future generations? Would George Washington be proud to have sacrificed so many in the cause of freedom he so honorably gave to us?

We honor our military veterans today because they believe in the cause of freedom. They believe our freedoms are worth fighting and dying for. If we look at how intrusive and over reaching our central government has become we must ask – have we been staunch defenders of freedom as the citizens of this great nation?

I know our veterans have held up their part in the role of self-rule. We honor them today and thank them. But what I wish and believe honors our veterans the most is to do our part and protect our freedoms by engaging in the political process with the intensity our veterans have pursued theirs.

God Bless our veterans and their families!

Thank You Veterans…

It is incumbent on us to remember our vets on Veteran’s Day, but I choose to remember them always. The history of this great nation has one common thread that has enabled this great republic to thrive; men and woman willing to fight to protect our constitution.

It wasn’t enough to create a constitution if there was no way to protect it. Our military has been the foundation of respect we have achieved throughout history. In total sum there is no greater institution around the world that has spread the opportunity for people to be free. They are an example for the world that having a strong military is not a threat to democracy; it is a foundational element of a democracy.

Too many dictators have utilized the military to dampen the fire of liberty. In America our military soldiers are grounded in liberty by their upbringing and voluntarily heed the call of service to the country. These brave men and women will never be convinced to turn their back on their fellow Americans because some lunatic politician decided to attempt a coup d’état. They would find themselves alone in any attempt to subvert the constitution.

We celebrate these men and women today, but really, we celebrate them every day we live in freedom…

God Bless our Veteran’s and Active Military…

God Bless our Veterans…

Words are never enough to express the gratitude our veterans deserve for their part in securing the freedom of America and the world. This world would be unrecognizable if not for their dedication and sacrifice.

Today, I hope you take a moment and say a prayer for all of our active military, and never forget the past patriots who have sacrificed their lives and fortunes to leave us in a country blessed with freedom. Freedom has never been free; these men and women have paid the price on our behalf.

For that, we owe them our heartfelt thanks. God Bless our Military, their families, and our country…

Honoring a Veteran Honoring Veterans...

I always count my blessings on Veteran's Day and look for the right words to honor those that have served and are serving. I found those words in a note from my good friend and veteran Kirk Weisler. I post his words for you to read on this day of honor:

It’s Veteran’s day, and I won’t cheapen it with a feeble effort and some patriotic platitudes. Rather I will attempt to express something from my own experience and from my own heart.

I would like to share with you a personal story of an opportunity I had while serving a 4 year active duty enlistment with the 3rd Ranger Battalion at Ft. Benning Georgia. I also got to serve a short stint with the 10th Mountain Division while at Benning. Part of my service included being assigned to the dreaded “Funeral Detail” Which I was informed would be a mostly boring assignment to honor recently deceased veterans. The funeral detail was a 30 day duty assignment where I would be in charge of the seven man team who did the 21 gun salute, during the funeral services of any active or retired serviceman who passed away within a 2-3 hour driving radius of our post. Also assigned to our detail was a service man to play Taps, and the crew assigned to carry the deceased veterans casket and attend to the folding of the flag from his casket and passing it to the spouse or next of kin.

I cannot think of any other assignment or duty I performed during my enlistment that was as personally rewarding to me as this one. The absolute depth of humility and gratitude I felt for these men, whom I did not know, was surprising to me then as a young and mostly immature soldier. But my knowing them did not seem to be important…knowing that they had sworn to “uphold and protect”, that they had worn the uniform of a soldier, that they had been willing to put their life in harms way for a cause greater than themselves, seemed to be more than enough. I remember clearly the intense feelings that came to myself and my squad each time the sound of Taps reached through our ears to our hearts, each time the shots rang out, and each time our sacred flag was folded with reverence and respect. It seemed during those moments that the soldier we honored that day was some revered national hero, someone whom had single handedly won the day. As if the soldiers we honored at those services somehow represented every soldier who had every fought in or been to battle… the presence or sense that I felt during those sacred moments was if there were literally thousands of soldiers there at that moment, coming to pay their respects, to give reverence and honor to one of their own. On the sometimes long and mostly quite bus rides back to base as I reflected on the feelings of the day…I could easily imagine the deceased whom we had honored being welcomed from this life into the next by the Warriors and Soldiers of yesterday’s battles into a Army of with perhaps a different uniform, maybe a different commanding officer and weapons…but still fighting for the same cause…. A cause of Justice a cause of Mercy, Be-Cause of Freedom.

The fanciful romantic musings of a young Christian soldier?…Maybe so. One thing is for certain though…Funeral Detail was anything but mostly boring and honoring veterans dead or alive is no singular activity. Honoring one is honoring all, honoring all is honoring the one. Today I will find at least one veteran, I will thank him for what they have done, what they were willing to do, what he/she is doing right now and what they may be asked to do tomorrow. My experience on that funeral detail taught me anything it taught me that honoring one….truly can be honoring all…and in honoring them all we miss not a one.

God Bless America and the Soldiers Who’ve Fought for Freedom Kirk Weisler, Former Sgt, 3rd Ranger Bn. , 10th Mtn Division, 19th Special Forces

Hooah and thank you!