Take a good look at the picture below. How does it make you feel?
I am sickened by it.
On a trip to France in 2009, the president of the United States declared that America has ‘failed to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world’ and has ‘shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive’ towards its allies.
On a campaign stint in early 2008, the soon-to-be first lady of the United States declared that ‘for the first time in her adult life’ she is now proud of her country.
These two statements were not slips of the tongue. They were not aberrational statements of opinion from the leader of the western world and his spouse. The anti-American sentiment expressed in their words are borne out everyday in their actions which are seeking (and, sadly, succeeding) in bringing the real America to her knees, and replacing it with a socialist utopia where a ruling elite reigns supreme.
The consistency of his words and actions indicate that the leader of the free world has either little or no understanding of American heritage and history, or unbridled contempt for it, presumably because it does not combine well with his elitist-rule vision of the future of America. Neither condition renders him qualified to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
Obama spoke his derisive words about America and her relationship with our ‘allies’ fewer than five hundred miles from Normandy, where, sixty-eight years ago, on both Omaha and Utah Beaches close to seven thousand ‘arrogant’ Americans willingly offered themselves up as casualties of war.
Two of our current president’s most trailblazing accomplishments have been (1) abandoning the time-honored tradition of respecting the legacy of his predecessors and (2) consistently showing irreverence for those duty-bound, courageous patriots who sacrificed – sometimes with their lives – to create the most moral and prosperous nation in the history of mankind, and to stand in the crosshairs of tyrants when the liberties of others were threatened.
Such is the proud legacy that ten generations of Americans have crafted out of blood and sacrifice that spans more than two centuries, the extent of which the world had never before known.
Below is a picture of a section of the Meuse-Argonne American cemetery in France. The cemetery covers more than 130 acres, and beneath each of those little white specks/crosses lies the body of an ‘arrogant’ American – husbands, fathers, sweethearts, sons, brothers who left home and loved ones to travel to foreign soil in the name of freedom. More than fourteen thousand American World War I dead are buried at Meuse-Argonne. Look intently at the picture and think about that. Focus on those little white specks. Do you have a lump in your throat?
France (remember the place where our current president spoke of America’s ‘arrogance’ and ‘derisive’ nature?) is home to eleven large American military cemeteries. Meuse-Argonne is only one of them. There are also hundreds of thousands of American bodies lying beneath headstones at Arlington National Cemetery, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Flanders Field, Ardennes, Normandy, Florence, Lorraine, Aisne Marne – in cemeteries throughout Europe (the allies that we ‘dismiss’ and treat with ‘derision’) ... and in countless unmarked graves in unknown places. All of those bodies embraced the vision of freedom, law and justice that defines the real America – a vision that they wanted the rest of the world to have the freedom to choose as well.
Remember our heroes, in spite of your president’s agenda-driven desire that you forget them. They are watching us now from afar, quietly but insistently reminding us of the source and precious value of our liberties, and challenging us to hold those hard-won liberties dear, standing firm against all who would remove them from our grasp.
Remember them – both those who have left us and those who are now serving on battlefields far from home, facing the prospect of death with each new dawn. Seek out a Memorial Day service in your neighborhood tomorrow morning. There will be plenty of time for barbecues in the remaining hours of the day. And, after the service, continue to honor our fallen countrymen through a determination to follow in their courageous, duty-bound, liberty-loving footsteps. There could be no finer role model for us all. |
