By John Burtis
Saturday, December 24, 2005
as we gather this Christmas Eve with our families, let us pause and remember those who are protecting us at home and abroad, and all those who have gone before. after all, we are living in the present they have bequeathed us.
Bless the police officers and the firefighters who keep us safe from harm and who serve so that we may celebrate in comfort and with freedom from fear. and bless their families who must sit at tables with empty chairs and plates knowing that their occupants will go in harm's way for the sake of our communities.
Bless all the firefighters who have paid that ultimate price, from New York's 23rd Street fire and the Boston's Hotel Vendome and others too numerous to mention to the horror of 9/11 and beyond, starting with Ben Franklin's first fire company. Pray for the cops whose names cover the National Law Enforcement Memorial in Washington, D.C., for they have lain down their lives while protecting and serving every one of us, beginning with early watchmen in New amsterdam.
Bless our soldiers and marines in afghanistan and in Iraq, in the Phillippines and Germany, who are walking the cold, lonely ramparts of freedom in faraway lands for us, holding our pictures in their pockets, remembering our tables, the smell of turkeys, the lights on trees, the snow falling quietly on evergreens.
Bless the sailors on the storm tossed ships, those small islands that are forever america, from the Indian to the atlantic Oceans, who keep the sea lanes open and who show our flag and our symbols, including Christmas, to the far corners and the many peoples of the globe.
Bless the airmen who fly continuously through all kinds of weather, night and day,
bringing medical supplies to troops and civilians alike, evacuating the sick
and wounded, carrying the fallen on their final journey, from the far-flung
battlefields to the earthquake and tsunami ravaged regions of the world.
and bless all those who have served the United States of america in all the wars in her history, for their blood is the mortar of our holidays, from Valley Force to Yorktown, 1812 , The alamo, Missionary Ridge and Chickamauga, Gettysburg and Vicksburg to appomattox, the Rough Riders – the argonne, The Lost Battalion, Chateau-Thierry, Pearl Harbor, Tarawa, Sicily, Normandy, Iwo Jima, Hurtgen Forest, Monte Cassino, Okinawa, Task Force Smith, Pusan Perimeter, Pork Chop Hill - LZ X-Ray, Khe Sanh, Plei Mei, Hue City, Desert Eagle, Desert Storm, 43 Eastings - Baghdad, Ramadi, Fallujah.
In our minds eye we must walk the gardens of stone, like The Punch Bowl or arlington, with their thousands upon thousands of crosses and Stars of David, on Christmas Eve and visualize those who are forever young and who went to their deaths willingly to give us this day of days. Just as we must take pause and honor all those who have perished protecting us from evil and harm here at home.
They sit silently in our homes and judge our use of this day they have given us because it is their Christmas forever, while it is ours for just a short while.
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