A Different Memorial Day Message

I am going out to the Catskills this Memorial Day weekend to see my younger son get married, something I never thought I would see, and I am overjoyed. For this Memorial Day weekend, I wanted to write something about our service men and women who fight and die for us to preserve our freedoms and our Constitution, but then one of my best e-mail friends, named John, sent me this. It says it all on this special occasion:

“I cannot believe I am still alive. There is no logical explanation The only explanation is that God has kept me alive for His own reasons.I have pretty much gone everywhere and done everything.

 Few would call my life "safe." I was a risk taker.

 It is a wonder my call sign wasn't "Reckless Abandon."

And all around me people are gone. Yet at the same time: all around me I am blessed to find survivors just like me. My wife survived what communist Vietnam had to offer after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

She survived eight years in a refugee camp.

She survived more than three weeks at sea without much water or food. Four others in her group died before her very eyes. A few gave up and got into the water and swam into the after life.

Some of her friends and relatives did not make it here alive. Some were tortured. Some raped by pirates.

I spoke to me wife last night about Memorial Day and some of the missing military men who are still unaccounted for.

My wife has a brother who was just a Vietnamese civilian teenager when the communists took over in 1975. He was picked up and taken to communist prison and never came home.

Mom went to visit him in prison one Sunday. The next Sunday the prison staff told her "He is no longer here."

They had no requirement to say or do more. They are not held accountable by the people as we are in a democracy. They hold the people accountable to them and they are unchecked.

Our Mom knows the same anguish the Mom of a man Missing In Action (MIA) in wartime knows. Her son went into a communist prison and never came out. Like hundreds of thousands and probably millions of others he just disappeared.

There is no commission to find them. No Senate Select Committee. No friendly "ear" in government. No free press to help. No church groups protected by law.

I am grateful on Memorial Day to be alive. I am grateful on Memorial Day to be an American. And I am grateful for America despite her flaws.

The first time my wife voted, she came out of the voting booth with her arms raised like Rocky after his boxing triumph. She only said a few words: in fact she shouted them. "AMERICA! THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD!"

*************************** Democracy is the worst form of government. Except all the others. ---Winston Churchill ************************

I am very grateful that my Higher Power has given me a second chance to live a worthwhile life. I am alive and I have been restored to sanity. The promises are being fulfilled in my life.

I am grateful to be free from slavery. I am grateful for peace of mind and the opportunity to grow, but my gratitude should go forward rather than backward. I cannot stay grateful on memories alone; I need to put my gratitude into action today. Without action, my gratitude is just a pleasant emotion. I need to put it into action by working for others in love as Our Saviour Commanded.

By carrying the message and practicing the principles in all my affairs. I am grateful for the chance to carry the message today!

*********************** "If you're not a liberal when you are young you have no heart. If you're not a conservative when you are older you have no brain." ----Winston Churchill”

Thanks to John and to everyone who appreciates our precious country and tries to keep it from unravelling.