Heroes

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to sing Amazing Grace at the grave site services for two VFW Memorial Day ceremonies. It was sobering and awesome. The ceremonies were very short. A few words of reverence, honor, gratitude and prayer by those who served and are still here to tell the tale. They were solemn words on behalf of those who did not make it home to loved ones. They were words EVERY AMERICAN should hear and say. Thank you for giving your life for me and my family. Thank you for doing what most of us can't do and wouldn't even think of attempting. John 15:13 reads "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." And yet theses soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines have given their very lives for a nation of often hostile and ungrateful STRANGERS. 

On Sunday, the eve of Memorial Day, Chris Hayes of MSNBC expressed discomfort at the thought of calling our fallen military men and women heroes. If they are not heroes, THERE ARE NO HEROES! He has since apologized. But the fact remains, he is an absolute ingrate. You can disagree with a war. Even all war. But to speak with such a lack of reverence for those who have given you the ability to speak freely. To sleep soundly and safely in your warm comfortable bed. (While they sleep eternally.) To give a shallow, hollow, cheap, tawdry and most likely pressured and insincere apology for something that never should have been said is disgusting. I suggest, we all spend a bit more time thanking our military and our emergency and rescue and law enforcement and intelligence personnel for taking on the bullets and the bombs. For running into the burning buildings. For going behind enemy lines. Yes, even going behind our backs at times. To do what must be done so that we can live in an imperfect, but amazingly free and privileged society. Even the bottom of the American socio-economic ladder has a higher standard of living than most people around the world. I say thank you to our fallen and living heroes. I do and will continue calling them heroes. Imperfect? Yes, they are. But they daily go about their duties protecting in one way or another an equally imperfect citizenry that should at least have the  decency to call them what they truly are. Heroes.

Thank you, heroes that serve now. Thank you, heroes that have shed blood and whose blood was shed. Thank you, heroes who have come home maimed to a not so grateful nation. And most of all. Thank you, heroes that didn't make it home. May your families be comforted and secure in the knowledge that you did not make your ultimate sacrifice in vain. God bless you all.

I would love to hear from you. Especially, if you (decently and respectfully) disagree. 

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