In the climatic scene of the 1998 movie, "Saving Private Ryan," Captain Miller (played by Tom Hanks) lies dying and implores Private James Ryan (played by Matt Damon),
"James..., earn this. Earn it."
The "it," of course, is the sacrifice of most of Miller's special detail sent on an almost impossible mission to find and retrieve one American paratrooper among the tens of thousands of American soldiers scattered across Normandy in the immediate aftermath of the June 6, 1944 landings.
The movie is fiction. The sentiment is fact.
Nearly a million and a half young American men and women have given their lives in the wars of our Republic since its founding.
It's not possible to accurately determine an average age of the fallen -- but it can scarcely be more than 20 years of age.
Twenty years old. A life just begun.
Think hard on this. When we say that a soldier "sacrificed his life" we aren't talking about someone giving up the last few years of a full and rewarding life. We're talking about someone giving up the vast majority of his adult life. Never experiencing any of the joys of adulthood.
Never falling in love.
Never marrying.
Never hearing the birth cry of a first son or daughter.
Never experiencing the pride of a first civilian pay check..., a first home..., a first car.
Never seeing a child's first steps..., hearing a child's first words..., watching that child grow to adulthood.
Never having the opportunity to teach a son how to be a man, or walk a daughter down the aisle.
All of these things, and so much more, are given up -- sacrificed on the altar of freedom -- when a young American soldier dies.
Picture in your mind's eye, Arlington National Cemetery, or any of the dozens of American Cemeteries around the globe, in which young American soldiers are buried.
Listen intently with your heart as you gaze upon row on row of white markers.
Listen.
Do you hear it?
Thousands of voices, imploring us,
"Earn this. Earn it."
On this Memorial Day, the most sacred day on the calendar of our great Republic, perhaps the foremost question we -- the living -- should ask ourselves is,
"Have I earned it?"
How do we earn the soldier's sacrifice? May the Colonel be so bold as to make a recommendation beyond just the flippant "be a good citizen" tripe?
May the Colonel recommend that we earn the soldier's sacrifice of
his adulthood by being...
Adults.
In the Colonel's not-so-humble estimation we are fast becoming a nation of spoiled children -- all 300 million of us.
We are allowing politicians (the Colonel refuses to refer to the current crop as leaders) to tax and spend our earnings in wanton disregard of even the most basic tenets that have grounded our grand Republic for the better part of three centuries.
Adults don't allow that.
We are allowing a nanny-state bureaucracy -- the intrusive breadth and depth of which our self-reliant and liberty-loving forefathers would have found horrific -- to deny our rights, trample our freedoms, and restrict our liberty in ways that the tyrannical enemy governments -- against whom the sacrificing soldiers fought -- could only dream they had the power.
Adults don't allow that.
We are allowing self-appointed social justice and political correctness priests to determine the altars at which we are allowed to worship, the history we are allowed to read, the traditions we are allowed to keep, and the manner in which we are allowed to speak...; the very definition of fascism -- against which the sacrificing soldiers fought.
Adults don't allow that.
We are allowing children -- who have never contributed anything to our Republic outside of using their parents' money to stimulate the economy -- to drive policy, determine our national mores, and tear down monuments honoring the fallen.
Adults don't allow that.
We are allowing college educators (the Colonel uses the term as loosely as a new-born's diaper deposit) -- who have never contributed anything to our Republic outside of using exorbitant tuition to stimulate the economy -- to indoctrinate our children in the most vile and anti-American doctrines imaginable.
Adults don't allow that.
The Colonel could go on, but he tires of his own pedantry.
May the Colonel not-so-humbly suggest that it is time for us to earn the soldier's sacrifice and tell the "children,"
"Enough!"
It is time to stand and draw a solid line beyond which we will no longer allow spoiled children -- of any age -- to dictate to us.
That's how we can earn the soldier's sacrifice.
A little over six months ago, a Category 5 hurricane came ashore just to the east of Panama City, Florida. Directly in the path of the eye, on a sliver of land protecting a shallow bay, was Tyndall Air Force Base.
"Was" is the operative word. The base was completely destroyed.
Hurricane Michael swept north and over the working class/retirement community of Callaway, nestled just inland of Tyndall, and the results were cataclysmic.
Upon retirement from the Air Force in the late Seventies, the Colonel's in-laws settled in Callaway, and built a modest home in a new neighborhood carved out of a sandy pine barren. They joined a very small church located at the entrance to their neighborhood and leaned in to build, and reach the lost.
Carlisle Baptist Church, named for an early benefactor, had very humble beginnings; and, from the Colonel's close association with it over the last forty years, never lost its humility -- even as it grew from a dozen folks meeting in a tent to a campus with a beautiful worship sanctuary, and a half dozen other buildings providing office, education, and recreation space.
Perhaps the signature building of the complex is the unadorned two story cinder block, metal-roofed -- the Colonel searches and the best descriptor is -- "ark" that houses classrooms, a commercial kitchen, and a basketball court-sized gym.
"Is" is the operative word. The ark is the only building standing. The only building on the complex that did not have catastrophic damage.
The "ark" was/is, in the Colonel's not so humble opinion, not a pretty building. It sits tall, squat, ungainly, and out of place on the corner at the neighborhood's entrance, looking for all the world like a beached...
well...,
ark.
The Colonel and his bride -- the comely and kind-hearted Miss Brenda -- attended Easter Services at Carlisle last week. The Colonel spent the intervening week trying to figure out how to put into words what he saw and felt.
He's still not sure he can.
It's been six months since 150 mph winds flattened Callaway and blew away the pretty part of Carlisle Baptist Church's campus.
It still looks like it happened yesterday.
The skyline of tall pines and oaks is gone. The tallest features on the landscape now are enormous debris piles. The color blue (tarps covering holes in walls and roofs) dominates the palette.
Many homes are abandoned. Some have already been bulldozed.
It is as near a post-apocalyptic scene as the Colonel has seen, outside of photos of 1945 Japan and Germany.
Whether or not Michael's ground zero will ever recover is an open question. A significant portion of the area's population is gone. The stores that are open (and there are more destroyed and closed than open at this point) are hard pressed to find workers. Workers are hard pressed to find housing. Repairs to repairable housing is moving at a snail's pace, for a variety of reasons not the fault of the residents.
The one sure way to invigorate rebuilding would be the rebuilding and reopening of Tyndall Air Force Base. But that depends on massive Federal funding, so...
In the gap stands the brave and faithful members of a small church with one building left standing.
The Colonel spoke briefly to the pastor -- a young man whose family the Colonel has known for 40 years; who grew up in Callaway, surrendered to the ministry, and led two churches before returning to pastor his home church just months before the hurricane flattened its buildings -- before services that Easter Sunday morning.
His spirit and leadership in the midst of the challenge of his life is amazing. He told the Colonel, "Not having any church buildings has forced us to look outside of our buildings."
Carlisle church has done just that. From the moment they were able to make their way past the abatis of fallen trees blocking every road, they converged on their one standing building -- their ark -- and made it a rallying point for hope and relief for the entire community. As supplies poured in from outside help, the ark's gym became a distribution center. When power came back on, the ark's kitchen provided hot meals.
Carlisle is ministering in a community in which hope is in very short supply.
Can the Colonel tell you about their Easter services? He wishes he could.
All he remembers is wiping away tears for a solid hour.
The Colonel doesn't care near as much for Christmas as he does Easter.
The Colonel cares not one wit on which of Santa's lists his name appears. If his name did happen to appear on the "good" list, the Colonel assures you that nothing in his own character and conduct landed it there. The only redeeming quality of the man curmudgeoned before his time is the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
And that's why Easter is the holiday that means the world to the Colonel.
Like every other man who preceded, and will follow, him, the Colonel's sin and imperfection separates him from his Creator. The Colonel fervently believes that his God is so Holy, so perfect, that He cannot allow sin and imperfection in his presence. Nothing the Colonel could ever do in his own strength and personal conduct can ever bridge the great gulf that separates his sinful mortality from God's perfect and holy immortality.
The Colonel believes that God loves him despite his possession of the blackest, most sinful heart any man has ever possessed. The Colonel can not, even in the wildest delusions about himself, come to any conclusion other than that he is just as imperfect and bent toward evil as any man who ever lived. And yet, he can come to no other conclusion but that God loves him.
Allow the Colonel to explain why he believes God still loves him in spite of his sinfulness.
Man is God's greatest, most beloved creation. God placed man at the head of His earthly creation -- privileged to the fruit and responsible for stewardship. But, as beautiful as all of creation may seem to man, it is not perfect. It is corrupt and transitory.
So, why would a perfect God create imperfection?
The Colonel doesn't pretend to know the perfect mind of God, but he believes that God created man for a relationship built on man's free will. God didn't want man to love Him because he had to.
When God selected Abram (and later renamed him Abraham), from whom to establish His People, He was not picking a perfect man to father a people special in their own right. The only thing special about Abraham and his descendants is that they were chosen for one purpose and one purpose alone -- to reveal God to man.
Abraham's descendants -- God's chosen people -- endured four centuries of captivity in Egypt. At the time of their exodus from Egypt, the Israelites were a nation of millions -- and still they needed a Savior God to free them. It was the overwhelming power of a Savior God that liberated the Israelites, a people as stubbornly sinful and rebellious as any who ever existed. God miraculously saved them from captivity and miraculously sustained them on their return to the land God had promised to them.
Look, for all the "flowing with milk and honey" descriptions of the land between the Euphrates and the Nile, the "Promised Land" isn't any more special -- in its own right -- than any other territory on this big blue marble. The Colonel has trod on a goodly percentage of God's creation, to include the "Promised Land," and there isn't anything to recommend that sliver of land at the western end of the Mediterranean above any other.
Except that God chose it, and a people to populate it, to reveal Himself to man.
On the way out of Egypt, God established a covenant with the people He chose for the express purpose of revealing Himself to man. He provided His Law -- the Commandments -- as His expectations of the people He chose for the express purpose of revealing Himself to man.
God expected man to follow His Commandments to the letter, but knew that he couldn't.
The Colonel knows that just don't make sense. Not to man, anyway.
Just as God chose Abraham's descendants to reveal Himself to man, He provided His Law to reveal His perfection and man's imperfection. No man, save the human incarnation of God's Son, has ever perfectly kept the Ten Commandments.
The Colonel hasn't even come close. In fact, he has swung and missed at every one, in thought and deed (no difference in God's perfect vision), of the slow-pitch softball offerings of the Ten Commandments.
Seriously. The Ten Commandments don't require anything that man would consider Herculean effort. There's no requirement to slay dragons, no demand that one fly like an angel, no need to perform miracles -- just demonstrate by your actions that you love God and love your fellow man.
Search your heart. What is your score?
(Rhetorical question. Please don't tell the Colonel your failings -- he has more than enough on his own conscience to be burdened with yours as well.)
One infraction of God's Law makes one imperfect and guilty of sin. A sinful, guilty man cannot enter into God's presence of his own accord. God just won't allow it.
So, all of mankind falls far short of the glory and perfection of a Creator God who loves them above all of His creations. It doesn't make sense to this man. And that's the point. The Colonel ain't God.
From the very beginning of His relationship with man, God required a significant sacrifice to demonstrate a man's sincere remorse for his sin -- the life blood of the best of the beasts for which God made man responsible. But, this atonement was always temporary and ultimately insufficient.
Why? Because any sacrifice of even the very best, any lamb without outward blemish, of God's imperfect creation was..., well...,
...imperfect.
What's so imperfect about a lamb without any blemish?
Simple. It is mortal. It will not live forever. If it was truly perfect, it would be immortal.
In God's perfect timing, He sent His perfect Son into the world as a human. This was the Messiah, prophesied about and promised to His Chosen People -- again, not because they were special in their own right. It was not the first time (nor the last) that God's Son would appear on Earth.
The disciple with perhaps the closest relationship with God's Son incarnate preambles his gospel with the following revelation from God:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1: 1-5)
Let's unpack that.
God's Son -- His only Son -- has existed (and will exist) with God for eternity in either direction mortal man my look in time. Man refers to Him as God's Son because there is no other way man can comprehend the concept. There is no God Mother of God's Son -- none mentioned by God; none referred to by God-inspired scripture. God's Son was with God at Creation -- indeed, He is the Agent of Creation.
The Colonel's journey with his Savior God has led him to the following conclusion about the Bible's account of Creation -- it isn't about the Creation; it's about the Creator.
God's Son is God's Agent of Eternal Salvation. Outside of the Son, there is no eternal life -- no means by which sinful, imperfect man may escape the sentence of mortality and enter, completely pardoned of all sin, into the eternal presence of God.
Remember the blood sacrifice requirement the Colonel mentioned earlier? That sacrifice of a superficially "perfect" animal only temporarily atoned for a man's sin. The sacrifice had to be repeatedly made, and still did not completely pardon a man's sin.
A truly perfect sacrifice was required. And because imperfect man was (is) incapable of making a truly perfect sacrifice, Perfect and Holy God had to make that truly perfect sacrifice for the forgiveness of the sins of His most loved creation. The truly most perfect and greatest sacrifice God could make was to allow His Son to set aside His perfectly holy, most-high divinity and be made low.
How great was that fall?
God's Son is not only the Agent of Creation; He is the Commander of the Lord's Armies. Check out the account of Joshua on his commander's recon in front of the great fortified position known as Jericho found in the fifth chapter of the book of Joshua.
Moses is dead and buried on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Joshua has taken command, led God's People across the Jordan, and now stands on the Plain of Jericho scratching his head and trying to figure out how his light infantry army is going to reduce and capture one of the most impregnable fortresses ever faced by a military force. Joshua sees a resplendent warrior standing at a distance and cautiously approaches, asking, (the Colonel paraphrases) "Hey, soldier! Are you one of my men, or do you belong to the army of Jericho?"
The resplendent warrior's answer is a curt, "No!"
The Colonel can only imagine the look on General Joshua's face at that answer. The warrior saw the look and then changed it, "I am the Commander of the Lord's Army."
What does it mean to be the Commander of the Lord's Army? It doesn't take a military genius to figure out that chain of command. But, lest there be any doubt as to bona fides, the warrior facing Joshua commands him to remove his sandals because, "you are standing on Holy Ground." That's the same thing God told Moses to do when He appeared as the burning bush. Mere angels don't do that -- mere angels cannot and do not accept the worship of man.
In the 19th chapter of the Book of Revelations, the Commander of the Lord's Army returns with the entire army of Heaven at his back. The Colonel used to take a perverse pleasure in believing that he would be fighting in that final battle against evil..., until he realized that the entire army of Heaven doesn't lift a finger to help the Commander of the Lord's Army. One word from the Son of God's mouth destroys the army of evil.
That's the nature of the sacrifice made by God, whose Son loves mankind with the same perfect heart of His Father. The lamb offered by God was indeed perfect, but it was not just a lamb.
The most familiar verse of scripture -- the eternal hope of mankind -- is John 3: 16, "For God so loved the world, that He sent his only begotten Son..." But, when you realize that God's "only begotten Son" left heaven as a perfect, immortal, holy king (and the greatest warrior) to become mortal flesh in a form without any inherent social privilege, to live as a mortal man, and to (in the prime of life) willingly go to the cross..., well..., that's a true sacrifice.
And on that cruel cross, God's Son, made manifest in the body and soul of Jesus of Nazareth, gave up His sinless, perfect, holy life-blood to cover the sins of mankind...
Forever.
God created man for voluntary relationship. God's requirement for that relationship is the voluntary acceptance of the sacrifice of His Son.
The Colonel is beyond grateful that his own earthly conduct has no bearing on his eternal salvation.
The Colonel is a heartless creature, empty of empathy and short on sympathy.
You want him that way.
The Republic needs men and women like the Colonel -- cold, calculating, rational...,
...unfeeling.
While the rest of humanity pines for the ease of a life where the phrase "I feel that..." precedes all pronouncements of policy positions, there must be those hated few who keep the rest grounded in reality.
The Colonel's bride, best friend, and permanent life journey co-marcher -- the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda -- is a world-class "feeler." She possesses a heart the size of Montana.
Why Montana?
Because the Colonel likes to see his Texan friends pay attention, and slighting them is a sure way to accomplish that mission.
Works with Bama and LSU fans as well.
But, the Colonel digresses.
Last evening, the Colonel was ensconced in his comfy leather chair parked front and center of his far-too-small 50" flat screen (he means, c'mon there's room on that wall for at least a 75"), perusing the cable news opinion prattle. The comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda was couch-side tending to her current quilting project and paying about as much attention to the discussion of politics and policy as an armadillo pays to traffic, when one of the talking heads said something that caused her to pause mid-stitch,
"That's not right."
The Colonel jumped at the sudden sound to his right, unaccustomed to any other sound during his nightly perusal of the cable news opinion prattle, save his own shallow breathing. He turned to see the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda glaring at the far-too-small flat screen (seriously, the Colonel could easily fit an 80" on that wall), "What's that dear? Did you lose your needle again?"
She pointed toward the far-too-small flat screen with her dainty chin (the Colonel loves that chin..., and seriously, if Vizio ever comes out with a 100" model...), "That's not right. I don't feel that they should be able to do that."
"Your 'feelings' have zero bearing on the issue," the Colonel growled dismissively.
"Don't be dismissive with me, old man!" The comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda was no longer pointing her dainty chin at the far-too-small (see previous paragraphs) flat screen. Her green eyes were flashing at the Colonel over her readers, "and, what's wrong with your voice? You sound like a puppy fighting over a bone."
"Who you callin' a puppy? That was the Colonel's dismissive growl, developed during a career of interminable staff meetings, and meant to strike mortal terror in the hearts of staff weenies wasting the operators' time."
"Whatever..." Obviously the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda had realized the error of her ways and was now submitting to the intellectual superiority of...
"What's wrong with your face, knucklehead? You've got that haughty Obama look going on."
The Colonel glared toward his beautiful bride, "That's the 'Colonel's haughty look.' Obama stole it from the Colonel."
"Whatever..." (The Colonel has a very submissive wife.) "I just don't feel that they should be able to do that."
"Well...," the Colonel dropped his dismissive growl (puppy, indeed! -- she probably thinks Moby Dick was a minnow) and assumed his practiced pedantic pontification persona. "There's no law against it."
"Well, I feel like there should be."
"It would be unconstitutional. And..., nowhere in the Constitution of our great Republic is the concept of 'feelings' found."
"How would it be 'unconstitutional?'" The comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda emphasized the last word in what the Colonel recognized as her mocking attempt to impersonate the Colonel's practiced pedantic pontification persona. The Colonel might have been offended if..., well..., if he had any feelings.
"Ever heard of the Bill of Rights, dear? What you are proposing would violate at least two of the rights protected in the first ten amendments to our Constitution."
"Well," the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda huffed, "they need to change those amendments, then."
"First," the Colonel shifted into a whole 'nuther gear in his practiced pedantic pontification persona, "you can't 'change' an amendment to the Constitution. In order to undo something in the Constitution, or an amendment thereto, you must ratify another amendment. For example, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1919, outlawed the production, transport, and sale of alcohol. It was superseded in 1933 by the 21st Amendment lifting this prohibition; but, the 18th Amendment itself was not changed and remains in the Constitution."
"Well, that's stupid. Why do they do that?"
"In the Colonel's not-so-humble opinion, that's part of the overall genius of the U.S. Constitution -- leaving the language of the amended portions of the original Constitution and superseded amendments intact provides an historical road map for posterity."
"Yeah. I know, I know. It's always about history with you isn't it?"
The Colonel didn't so much ignore the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda's jibe as much as took it as a compliment. He continued, "The constitutional process for changing anything in the U.S. Constitution is prohibitively protracted." The Colonel was wound up and reveling in the opportunity to educate, "Article V of the Constitution provides for two means of proposing an amendment for ratification consideration. One is via Congress -- either by a two-thirds majority of both the House and Senate, or by a national convention called by Congress (which ain't likely to happen). The other is what is currently being called "A Convention of States," where two-thirds of the states themselves call for a national convention."
The Colonel paused in a quick beseeching prayer, "Lord, if you love me -- and I don't doubt that you do -- you'll allow me to be selected as a state representative to the coming convention of states. Amen."
The Colonel noticed that the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda's patience was wearing ever-so-slightly thin and began to wrap up his practiced pedantic pontification, "Any proposed amendment must be ratified by two-thirds of the states in order to take effect. So, you see, it ain't an easy proposition."
"Why is it so hard for you men to do anything?"
The Colonel ignored the overt sexism in the comely and kind hearted Miss Brenda's remark, "Because..., had it been easy, anytime somebody felt that a change should be made -- based on their heart and not their head -- the limitations and protections of the greatest form of government ever devised by man would have been erased and the Republic would have foundered within its first generation."
"Well, I still feel like we should..."
The Colonel, empty of empathy, short on sympathy, and lacking even a modicum of tact, cut her off summarily.
"Yep, you and 150 million brainless socialists."
The Colonel is one Mississippian who is glad that the Union was saved.
He is an American, a citizen of the United States, and proud of it.
But, more than pride, the Colonel feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude and privilege that he was born in the greatest, most free nation the world has ever seen.
He can make that judgement and feel that way about it because he has seen the rest of the world up close and personal. We Americans take for granted the freedoms and opportunities about which the vast majority of the rest of humanity can only dream and for which they yearn wistfully.
The Colonel knows in his heart and head that if the Confederacy had won their independence 150 years ago, there today would almost certainly be no American superpower. The world would be a far different one without the great nation that emerged from the crucible of civil war cleansed and re-united. The dark ages that followed the fall of the Western Roman Empire would have have looked down-right bright and cheery compared to the darkness of a 20th Century without the United States.
In the early days of his adulthood (and he self-refers as an adult with respect to age alone), the Colonel swore an oath of allegiance and defense to the Constitution of that Union — one to which he is bound until death. He likes to think that he would have remained loyal to that oath had he been a commissioned officer in the US Army in the spring of 1861.
Had the Colonel been a student at Ole Miss then, he would almost certainly have joined the University Greys and gone to war as a Confederate -- almost every student did. And, here’s the thing — he wouldn’t have had a clue about what he was really doing. Most young men don’t get a clue until late in their twenties.
In distant retrospect, historians casually ascribe noble social and political motivations to the boys who go off to war. The grim, nasty, horrible, stinking battlefield truth is young men don't go to war for some politician's agenda. They join, and remain in, the ranks, not out of any sense of higher purpose -- except for one...
Each other.
Their letters from camp are filled with yearning for home and lots of reference to the the nobility of their "cause," to be sure. The Colonel knows, because he has penned hundreds of letters home, that what a soldier writes home is most often what he believes those at home want to hear. But, what they don't put in writing is the one thing they find the hardest to put in words -- their love of their comrades in arms.
It is for each other, that young men fight. Trust the Colonel on this.
In the early years of the last century, as the American South crawled out from under a heavy blanket of bitterness and defeat to join the new day of American exceptionalism, the one over-riding emotion remained a great sorrow for the boys without a clue who had marched off to the stirring tunes of "Dixie" and the "Bonnie Blue Flag" and disappeared forever. Southern boys without a clue fell on battlefields and died in diseased camps far from family and loved ones who waited and watched in vain for their return.
A southern boy without a clue who died on the battlefields of Shiloh, Antietam, or Gettysburg was often left on the field where he fell as his surviving comrades yielded the field to northern boys without a clue.
Northern boys fell too, of course. But, in victory, their remains were far more often buried and marked honorably.
A southern boy's grave was often a mass interment without any identifying markings.
When someone without a clue looks at a war memorial -- from any war -- what they often default to is their bias regarding the righteousness of that war. But a war memorial is not a celebration of the war or its "causes." A war memorial immortalizes the names of the mortal boys without a clue who advanced into the blazing guns -- not in response to a politician's speech, but in loving response to his comrade's simple "let's go."
A vocal minority of the current crop of children -- young men and women without a clue -- matriculating at Ole Miss, stirred up by self-appointed social justice priests masquerading as teachers -- who themselves have not the first clue regarding what it means to serve in the ranks -- are agitating for the removal of the war memorial that stands prominently at the center of the campus.
These same self-appointed social justice priests masquerading as teachers have been at the forefront of a decades-long insurgent campaign to strip the University of Mississippi of any reference to the history of the school that they deem -- in their infinitely tyrannical socialist, politically correct wisdom -- not progressive.
Mascots, flags, and songs have fallen to their zeal to rid the world of anything they feel -- emphasis on the unlearned concept of "feeling" -- is offensive.
Now, they find a memorial to southern boys who died in a war they didn't start offensive.
They have crossed a line on the other side of which stands one infuriated United States Marine Colonel.
They claim that the "cause" for which they marched and died was not just, demonstrating in their self-righteous, virtue-signally fervor that they have not the first clue about justice.
The Colonel denounces them with every fiber of his being. Were he still prone to the profanity that marked his former lack of self-discipline and resistance to the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the Colonel would easily make this post one that would make Patton's ghost blush.
The statue on the campus of Ole Miss makes no claim as to any righteousness of the cause for which the Mississippi boys marched to war. It simply memorializes those who died and are mostly buried in unmarked (sometimes mass) graves far from home.
The statue on the Ole Miss campus was paid for and erected, not by politicians, but by mothers and sisters whose last sight of their boys was their butternut blending into the ranks of their brothers. Those mothers and sisters had no marked grave to visit. We today have only this memorial to remind us, not of the cause, but of the effect of war.
Leave the memorial alone — remember boys without a clue.
It frightens the Colonel more than just a little (and he ain't scared of much) that the future of our Republic rests today in the hands of power-seekers whose cynical use of the inherently tyrannical concepts of democracy (also known as government by mob rule) and socialism threatens the very foundations upon which the most free people in the history of mankind live and work.
Those who would aspire to leadership in the affairs of our grand Republic would do well to study the actions of a great leader 236 years ago this month.
Allow the Colonel to set the scene for you:
The main fighting force of the American rebellion against Great Britain was encamped at Newburgh, New York. They, with more than a little help from the French Army and Navy, had shocked the world with the defeat of a British expeditionary force at Yorktown a year and half earlier. The remainder of British forces were bottled up in New York City, and the Continental Army remained nearby at Newburgh to keep an eye on them while an American delegation negotiated a peace treaty and independence in London.
One of General George Washington's most difficult tasks as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army (the army of the American colonial rebellion against the British Crown) was keeping an army in the field. As long as a Continental Army existed, the rebellion existed. As long as the rebellion existed, hope of independence existed.
The Continental Army was a whole different animal than the local and colony (state) militias. The various militias were untrained, mostly poorly led, and only showed up to participate (usually with poor results) in battles. After a battle (often in the midst of one) the militia melted away and returned to their homes. Militias started the war for independence -- but it would take a continuously fielded army to win that war.
Keeping an army in the field requires material, leadership, and, most importantly, a steady supply of manpower. Manning an army, particularly in a relatively free society, is a tricky business. Most nations employ some sort of conscription or draft. Richer nations rely on a combination of a draft and volunteers (providing compensation and benefit inducements). The richest nations often do away with a draft altogether (in times of relative peace) and rely strictly on an all-volunteer (read: "recruited") force. (In the United States most young men and women do not seriously consider military service until contacted by a recruiter and sold on the benefits of serving.)
During the American rebellion, there was no central Colonial authority to draft or recruit personnel for the Army and fledgling Navy. The individual colonies were cajoled by the Continental Congress (and, in some cases, by direct communication from George Washington himself) to raise forces for extended service with the line of the Continental Army. Most enlistments were for only one year and often for only 6 months. While some soldiers committed to serving for the duration of the conflict, most of the army's manpower was in a constant state of flux.
A large part of the reason for this constant state of flux was the fact that compensation for service was often only promissory -- individual colonies promised to compensate (in one form or another) later for service now. The national government was really no government at all -- it had little to no power over the individual colonies who each considered themselves practically independent nations in their own right. Any compensation and provisions provided by the Continental Congress came mostly from whatever loans the individual colonies and foreign governments (primarily France, Holland, and Spain) voluntarily provided.
The Continental Congress, and the individual colonies, did initially rely on fiat currency (paper money not backed by precious metal or other collateral) but before long that currency was considered worthless and not acceptable for trade, and by the time of the occurrence about which this post is written (early 1783) the compensation for the officers and men of the Continental Army was seriously in arrears.
In fact, in 1782, the Continental Congress actually formally suspended all individual compensation for the Army, the intent being to settle up with the officers and men after the war was over.
So, with no battles to fight since the defeat of Cornwallis' force at Yorktown in 1781, the roughly 8,000 man Continental Army sat on its hands in camp -- under-equipped, under-fed, unpaid, and unhappy.
An army with time on its hands -- even a well-paid and well-fed one -- will soon turn its energies to complaint. Place a few unprofessional officers with personal agendas in charge and those complaints will turn to conspiracy. In camp at Newburgh, New York, the Continental Army was rife with conspiracy.
In early 1783, an anonymous letter circulated among the officers at Newburgh condemning the inaction and inattention of the Continental Congress to the plight and pay of the Continental Army, and proposing a march on the seat of that congress at Philadelphia to rectify the situation.
In the Colonel's not-so-humble and not-so-little-studied opinion, one of Washington's chief subordinates -- General Horatio Gates (a former British Army general and open rival of Washington for command of the rebellion) -- if not the actual author of the letter, was the power behind the hand behind the pen. Washington had left Gates in charge of the force at Newburgh while he dealt with larger matters of the entire force and the Colonel believes Gates saw an opportunity (with the preponderance of the American army at his back) to stage a coup and take personal leadership of the entire rebellion (or maybe even use his control to bargain with the British for his own personal gain).
At any rate, a conspiratorial meeting of the officers was called for the 11th of March, 1783.
It was democracy in action.
That's right, the Colonel says this mutinous conspiracy had democracy as its agent of creation and force of animation.
You see, in a democracy, one man can whip up and ride the passions of a majority to his own ends and to the end of the interests of the minority and eventually to the end of the freedoms of the whole. The leaders of the Newburgh conspirators intended to hold a democratic vote, get majority approval for their plan, and then stage a coup that would have defeated the entire purpose of the revolution -- the establishment of a (little "r") republican form of governance for the upstart American nation.
The founders of our great nation DID NOT intend to found it as a democracy. They were (for the most part) well-read and educated men whose study of historical examples of government forms informed them that a democracy was the least stable and ultimately most self-destructive form of government known to man. The written arguments (the Federalist Papers, and other public and private letters) for establishment of our current Constitutional Republic -- are replete with dismal of democracy, decrying that form of government as dangerous and wholly unsuited for the purpose of the grand republic (with minority State and individual rights protections) envisioned. Democracy leads to coups -- coups lead to tyranny.
Need further proof of the Colonel's assertion? Go read both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and report back to the Colonel the number of times you find the actual word "democracy" or even discussion of the concept of democracy.
The Colonel will save you some time. "Democracy" does not appear anywhere in either document.
But, back to Newburgh...
Washington got wind of the called meeting, denounced the "disorderly" nature of the proposed meeting, and instead issued an order sanctioning a meeting to occur on the 15th. Washington ordered Gates to preside over the meeting and to prepare a report of the grievances to be made to the Commander in Chief.
Gates and the officers of the army did as commanded by Washington. Shortly after Gates gaveled the meeting to order, Washington, to the surprise and astonishment of all, strode into the meeting hall and took the stage.
His address to his officers denounced the conspiracy and its intentions, and appealed to their professionalism and patriotism, but seemed to fall on deaf hears. The army held Washington and his leadership in the highest esteem, but his exhortation at this point was no match for their exasperation.
The Colonel believes that study of Washington's Newburgh Address should be mandatory for all members and prospective members of the U.S. military's officer corps. It is a passionate plea, not for "democratic" ideals, but for a professional consideration of "republicanism" in which the rights and privileges of all are best promoted and protected.
A member of Washington's staff in 1783 -- David Cobb -- wrote in 1825, "I have ever considered that the United States are indebted for their republican form of government solely to the firm and determined republicanism of George Washington at this time.
But, at the end of his prepared speech to the officers assembled there at Newburgh in the cold, late winter of 1783, the passions of the majority still ran hot for action. Washington sensed his failure to sway the majority -- democracy was howling and ready to go on the prowl. He searched for the right words to add to his argument, and then remembered a letter from a member of the Continental Congress who had promised Washington that they were doing everything in their power to compensate and reward the sacrifices of the men of the Continental Army. Washington reached into the pocket of his coat, withdrew and unfolded the letter. He then realized that he couldn't focus on the writing.
Washington paused, and then did something then considered unprofessional for an officer to do in public and completely out of character for the Commander in Chief -- he donned a pair of reading glasses. Witnesses later said that the entire assemblage drew breath in an astonished gasp. Washington apologized humbly, saying, "Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country."
Whether or not it was intentional stagecraft on Washington's part will never be known. Washington's stature and character was such that no one ever thereafter dared ask him about the incident. And, no record exists that Washington ever mentioned it.
Washington's officers, unswayed by the words of his prepared speech, were thunderstruck instead by his example of personal sacrifice. They disbanded their democracy, and the future Republic was saved.
If any man were truly capable of pulling off the coup contemplated by the Newburgh conspirators it was Washington. He could have been the "democratically" approved King of America, had is character been so inclined. Instead, he was an honorable man. The indispensable man of his generation. The Father of our Republic.
The Colonel prays for our nation principled, Constitutional, (little "r") republican patriots like Washington. He also prays for republican enlightenment for those who would use democracy to gain socialist power by leveraging the material desires of the majority against the liberty and best interests of We the People.
The iconic image captured by Joe Rosenthal on the summit of Iwo Jima's volcano, Suribachi, stirred a nation and remains the most ubiquitous symbol of American warrior heroism.
Seventy-four years ago today, four days after storming ashore across fire-swept beaches, a Marine patrol reached the top of the lone mountain overlooking the tiny Japanese-held island astride the American axis of advance to Tokyo. The Marines raised a small American flag. It was replaced shortly thereafter by a much larger flag, the raising of which was caught on film by both a motion picture cameraman and in a snap-shot by Rosenthal.
The photographic record of the event, including a staged picture of Marines cheering the flag-raising was sent back to the United States and Rosenthal figured that picture would be the one that would make the papers, not the one of the second flag-raising. But, there was something about the almost accidental picture that captured the imagination of everyone Stateside.
The Colonel has heard many speakers try to explain, some very eloquently and convincingly, why the now-famous image has so ingrained itself in the American psyche. Suffice to say, there are certain elements of the picture that lend themselves to tradition, legend, and example. Study the picture and you will quickly see that none of the flag-raisers' faces are discernible -- it is an "everyman" image into which any American can impose his or her self.
More, every member of the flag-raising team is either in the act of an important function of the mission, or attempting to contribute -- there are no bystanders. None of the group are doing anything particularly heroic--yet, they represent an entire generation of heroes.
The thing the Colonel likes most about the image is that the men are raising and honoring the symbol of our nation. They aren't draping themselves in the flag. They aren't using it for their own purposes of personal aggrandizement. They aren't imposing themselves in front of it. There is a striking sense of humility and subordination of self to the best interests of the nation for which that flag stands. The flag is not perfectly displayed, it's staff has not reached it's pull upright potential -- much like the nation for which it stands.
The Colonel has a painted reproduction of the Iwo Jima Flag Raising in a place of honor on the wall of his study. It was a gift from a team of Marines he had been privileged to lead for three years, from 1990 to 1993. One of those Marines, Master Gunnery Sergeant Vickers, was the artist. It is a most prized possession, among a collection of many prized possessions from the Colonel's active duty career as a Marine.
The Colonel feels a profound sense of sorrow for those Americans whose most prized possessions do not include a representation of the symbol of the nation that has made possession of personal property such a cherished right.
The Colonel is not a big fan of walls and fences -- they tend to limit the freedom of both physical and spiritual movement within as well as without.
It will be no surprise to the half dozen regular readers of posts hereon (who prove by their persistence not so much loyalty as a complete lack of any other use of their valuable rod and cone time) that the Colonel is, among other things that set most folks' teeth on edge, an unapologetic proponent of a revival of the strategic movement that is the second most important reason for our Republic's greatness.
The first most important reason for our Republic's greatness is, of course, the remarkable form of limited government, with expansive protections of individual and state rights, guaranteed by our Constitution.
The second most important reason for our Republic's greatness, and the spiritual renewal for which the Colonel calls, is expansion.
Expansion is as much a spiritual concept as it is a physical requirement for greatness.
Were our ancestors as timid and cowed by tyrannical governments as we -- more concerned about what the dictatorially bureaucratic few allow than by what the God-given rights of man demand -- the United States of America would never have become the greatest nation the world has ever seen (the Colonel has seen most of the other candidates for that laurel either personally or by historical study and can easily attest to our Republic's place at the top of the list). Had 18th Century Americans obeyed the restrictive dictates of a distant king, they would have remained huddled behind the Alleghenies. They would have exhausted the resources on the Eastern Seaboard and then stunted both physically and spiritually.
Our ancestors did not remain huddled behind the Alleghenies. In fact, well before they officially declared independence, they openly disobeyed that distant king's royal decree that they remain so huddled and headed west. They crossed the physical wall of the Alleghenies -- free rangers determined to live free and prosper.
Funny thing about freedom -- it breeds a desire for more of it. Once a man shakes off the shackles of fear of the unknown, declares his independence of the bureaucratic boundaries imposed upon him by other men, and claims his God-given birthrights of life, liberty, and property, he becomes a truly FREE man.
Free men don't depend on government for their bread. Free men collectively agree to limited government in order to provide a level economic playing field, infrastructure, and liberty to earn their bread.
Free men collectively agree to maintain a common defense against entities that would restrict their freedom.
Another funny thing about freedom -- it breeds a desire to share it with others. Liberty loves company more than misery does. A company of free men may share hardship and deprivation, but they will never count it as miserable. This old Marine infantryman knows a little about voluntary shared hardship and deprivation and he retains only the fond memories of free men toiling to maintain freedom for their families and countrymen, and toiling to secure the freedom of others whose tyrannical governments deny it. In that there is no real misery.
Today our Republic is embroiled in the myopic inward-focused politics of grasping for a larger slice of the power pie. It's what happens to all empires when they cease expansion. An inward focused empire erects walls to protect the power pie. One power-seeking political faction builds outward-facing walls to maintain the power status quo ("we got ours; get your own"). Another power-seeking political faction builds internal walls to restrict individual freedom ("you got too much; you gotta share it").
When a nation thinks there's only one pie -- forgets or forsakes the ingredients for baking more pies -- it loses the spirit of liberty. Our nation has lost the spirit of liberty.
When the greatest nation on the planet loses the spirit of liberty, the rest of the world suffers. The greatest gift a free people give to another people is the ingredients to the freedom pie. We've forsaken the ingredients for our own unrestricted freedom pie bakery, and worst still, are refusing to share it with others.
What our nation needs is a return to the ideal that liberty loves company.
That's why the Colonel is an unapologetic American Expansionist. He believes, without a shadow of a doubt in his military mind, that the American form of government is the greatest, most liberty-protecting, freedom pie baking form of government the world has ever seen. He believed that fervently in the halcyon days of his young adulthood when he swore a solemn oath backed by his very life to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic." That fervor has only grown with time, and he is no less bound by that oath today than he was at 18.
The Colonel believes with every fiber of his being that our Republic must continue to expand if it wants to endure.
There's a very good reason, the Colonel believes, that the founders of our Republic did not choose to name the new nation rising from the spiritual revival of liberty, the United States of North America. There was no intent to restrict the blessings of liberty. Certainly not to the eastern seaboard of the North American continent. Frankly, there was no intent to withhold the blessings of liberty guaranteed by the Constitution to anyone, anywhere.
Article IV, Section 3.1 of the Constitution of the United States, ratified by the original 13 States, specifically foresees the expansion of the Republic -- with only internal limitation as to geographic location:
"New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress."
States have been Constitutionally admitted to the union of the original 13 States that were physically separated from the then-contiguous states of the Union -- California, Hawaii, and Alaska, for example.
Other sovereign nations have been Constitutionally admitted to the Union as states -- Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii.
Most of the current states Constitutionally admitted to the United States subsequent to the original 13 were people living in territories claimed by the United States as a result of occupation following hostilities with other nations -- France, Great Britain, Spain, etc. The United States still possesses territories liberated and seized as a result of hostilities with Spain -- Guam, American Samoa, and Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific; and Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean -- all of which could Constitutionally be admitted as states.
Parenthetically, the Colonel believes that no such Constitutional right of statehood belongs to the District of Columbia, as Article I, Section 8.17 of the Constitution makes clear: "The Congress shall have Power To… exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States…" Indeed, Madison, the chief architect of the Constitution, wrote in the Federalist #43 that,
"The indispensable necessity of compleat authority at the seat of Government carries its own evidence with it. It is a power exercised by every Legislature of the Union, I might say of the world, by virtue of its general supremacy. Without it, not only the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings be interrupted, with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general Government, on the State comprehending the seat of the Government for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the Government, and dissatisfactory to the other members of the confederacy."
So, no statehood for the federal District of Columbia.
Statehood, then, for the other U.S. territories if they so desire? The Colonel says, unequivocally, YES! And, by logical extension, statehood for future territories in the Americas, or elsewhere, liberated from tyrannical governments unable or unwilling to guarantee their suffering citizens their God-given rights of life, liberty, and property.
Our Republic was not founded to be static -- neither physically nor spiritually. Liberty loves company. Loving your fellow man means sharing the ingredients of the liberty pie with him. The Colonel knows of no other constitution in the world that produces a liberty pie as sweet as the one to which he has pledged his own sacred honor.
What is the logical, honorable extension of the Colonel's argument?
Expansion of the Republic. We're not the United States of North America. From the Hudson Bay to Tierra del Fuego, we should be the United States of America!
