Liberty Memorial, KCMO

“The patriot’s blood is the seed of Freedom’s tree.”- Thomas Campbell

1,329,450 fathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, soldiers we have lost in the 234 year history of this nation. True patriots were all of them.

Many of us treat Memorial Day as the start of BBQ, travel, pool and beach season. It’s the first 3-day weekend for us and we treat it as one. The freedom of choice we have today is the fruit of those 1,329,450 souls who gave the greatest sacrifice to insure we can do whatever it is we want to whenever we want to do it in this country We all too of forget that the freedoms we enjoy have been and still is being paid by the blood of our citizenry. The decision to become a soldier is making a promise to the American people to protect and defend all of us. It is no less important than the Hippocratic oath doctors make, vows to God priests make, and the oaths other vocations make. A soldier’s life is a vocation to serve this nation and when called possibly shed blood and die for it. The fact that we tend to get caught up in our day-to-day frivolities and forget what these 1,329,450 patriots of the American family as well as the other 1,300,000 (approx) still defending and serving this nation is disingenuous and abhorrent.

Today as well as everyday thank a soldier for their service to this country and defending every right we have exercised every day for the past 234 years.

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed-else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots it will wither and die.” President and former General Dwight D. Eisenhower