There are days when I wonder just why it was God made man ascendant over all of the other creatures he chose to inhabit the face of the earth.
We kill each other for profit. We take what doesn’t belong to us and dare others to take whatever it was back. We covet our brothers’ wives, women and children. We pervert the words, directives and commandments handed down by our higher power and those who claimed to be followers of that higher power.
Man thinks himself to be above it all in his ability to self-congratulate for successes he manufactured. Then he equates it all to the efforts of some power actually created something else. In those words there are a powerful distinction- manufacture versus create.
Where man takes what’s available and cobbles it together to create a self-serving trinket for his own purpose; the higher power takes nothing and through an unfathomable ability known only to the ages creates something of value always. Man makes. God creates. Man destroys wantonly. God transforms lovingly.
There are a lot of issues being bandied about today.
Veteran’s Day: a time to remember the sacrifice of some who gave willingly and more importantly those many who gave all selflessly for the future of America and the human race as a whole. When the need arose (and continues to arise) our children stand, recognizing the need for that purity of spirit and that dedicated trust we’ve explained to them: they stand for what is right. They live what we espouse.
America is rich in talent, determination, love for its children and the hope we all have for the future. We feast on principle and drink the nectar of freely harvested hope, determination and drive to succeed. We are nothing if not willing to work and sweat and bleed for what precious freedoms we have. We’ll fight to protect them and challenge any thinking they can take it by chicanery, duplicity or force.
Our freedoms are non-negotiable and unconquerable. Our loyalty to each other though occasionally tested by religiosity, dogma and ideology comes to the surface with the powerful statement – IAM AN AMERICAN.
These words are a statement, a poetic nuance and a bold yet quiet challenge to the world to aspire to one man or woman’s statement of fact. It confronts the unbelievers’ inability to match that strength of purpose so simply put and understood. Where there are some who blindly and verbally dispute our claims to greatness, they learn fully well not to test the metal in our will and the mettle of our spinal structure. We accept no fools willingly as they posture and preen with volatile words and saber-rattling rhetoric. They learn all too soon who (and what) we are.
I normally write 700 words. That won’t happen today. I’m taking some time to honor an old veteran who taught me how to love my country and my countrymen and women.
To him and all those others who stood tall in the face of adversity, the fear of combat, the overcoming of that fear and the progression they made after that fear was moved past I say thank you.
I say thank you in humility and awe for your quiet sacrifices and for the fact you are still my guide.
In my heart you’ll live forever and always. Thank you my veteran brothers and sisters.
Oh yeah. I was listening.
Love, Sarge
