FOR THE RECORD
"You've probably seen the bumper sticker somewhere along the road.
It depicts an American flag, accompanied by the words 'These colors
don't run.' I'm always glad to see this, because it reminds me
of an incident from my confinement in North Vietnam... Then a
major in the U.S. Air Force, I had been captured and imprisoned
from 1967 to 1973. Our treatment had been frequently brutal.
After three years, however, the beatings and torture became less
frequent. During the last year, we were allowed outside most
days for a couple of minutes to bathe. We showered by drawing
water from a concrete tank with a homemade bucket. One day, as
we all stood by the tank, stripped of our clothes, a young naval
pilot named Mike Christian found the remnants of a handkerchief
in a gutter that ran under the prison wall. Mike managed to sneak
the grimy rag into our cell and began fashioning it into a flag...
He made red and blue from ground-up roof tiles and tiny amounts of
ink and painted the colors onto the cloth with watery rice glue.
Using thread from his own blanket and a homemade bamboo needle,
he sewed on stars. Early in the morning a few days later, when
the guards were not alert, he whispered loudly from the back of
our cell, 'Hey gang, look here!' He proudly held up this tattered
piece of cloth, waving it, as if in a breeze... When he raised
that smudgy fabric, we automatically stood straight and saluted,
our chests puffing out, and more than a few eyes had tears...
Now, whenever I see the flag, I think of Mike and the morning
he first waved that tattered emblem of a nation. It was then,
thousands of miles from home in a lonely prison cell, that he
showed us what it is to be truly free." --Leo K. Thorsness,
recipient of the Medal of Honor
Editor's Note: Please join us today in honoring Memorial Day by
observing a minute of silence at 3 p.m. local time, for remembrance
and prayer. Also, if you can, please give a personal word of
gratitude and comfort to surviving family members who today still
grieve for a beloved warrior fallen in battlefields defending
our cherished liberties.
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THE FOUNDATION
"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my
country." --Nathan Hale
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INSIGHT
"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we
should thank God that such men lived." --Gen. George S. Patton
{} "They summed up and perfected, by one supreme act, the
highest virtues of men and citizens. For love of country they
accepted death, and thus resolved all doubts, and made immortal
their patriotism and virtue." --Gen. James A. Garfield {}
"Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to
God." --Inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
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IChThUS IMPRIMIS
"Eternal God, Creator of years, of centuries... Maker of all
species and master of all history -- How shall we speak to you
from our smallness and inconsequence? Except that you have called
us to worship you in spirit and in truth... God, lift the hearts
of those for whom this holiday is not just diversion, but painful
memory and continued deprivation... We remember with compassion
those who have died serving their countries in... combat...
We believe that you will provide for us as others have been
provided with the fulfillment of 'Blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted'." -- Rev. Dick Kozelka
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FAMILY
"By profession I am a soldier and take great pride in that fact,
but I am prouder, infinitely prouder, to be a father. A soldier
destroys in order to build; the father only builds, never destroys.
The one has the potentialities of death; the other embodies
creations and life. And while the hordes of death are mighty,
the battalions of life are mightier still." --General Douglas
MacArthur
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CULTURE
"There appears to be a serious deficit of American manhood
today... It is masculine leadership that is sorely lacking in
today's society. The feminist movement of the past half-century
has certainly contributed to the problem of poor male leadership.
Yet, the truth is, if men were the leaders they should have been,
the feminist movement would never have gotten off the ground.
The feminist movement was really not a cause, it was an effect...
The real problem is men are not the leaders of their homes or
of their churches... It is an undeniable fact that America has
evolved from a patriarchal society to a matriarchal society.
Women are the unquestioned authority figures in most homes...
Add to the problem of weak-kneed husbands and fathers the problem
of spineless preachers, and the deficit of masculine leadership
takes on epidemic proportions!... Regardless of their individual
political nuances, men such as George Washington, Theodore
Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan were manly men. They possessed the
kind of manly qualities that were once commonplace in America...
How can we expect men to hold their elected representatives
accountable to the rule of law and good government if they cannot
even hold their own families accountable to decent conduct?
How can the principles of self- government prevail on Pennsylvania
Avenue, if they do not prevail on Main Street?" --Pastor Chuck
Baldwin
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LIBERTY
"[In] nine days that saved the revolution... George Washington
hit upon an audacious plan to turn the tide of war. On Christmas
night, 1776, he led a force of 2,400 men across the ice-choked
Delaware River, into the teeth of a vicious blizzard... After
marching all night through the storm, they attacked and defeated
a garrison of 1,500 Hessian regulars at Trenton. The storm
gave the American attack an element of surprise; it concealed
their approach and interrupted patrols by the Hessian sentries,
already exhausted from days of fending off guerilla attacks from
local irregulars. A week later, having persuaded his veterans
to stay past their enlistment dates through a combination of
moral suasion and a ten dollar bounty in hard coin, Washington
set out to re-establish an American presence in New Jersey.
Recrossing the Delaware -- under conditions even worse than the
first time -- on January 2, Washington's men withstood a fierce
counterattack by British Regulars led by General Cornwallis on
the outskirts of Trenton. Seemingly trapped in their defensive
position, the Americans stole away under cover of night,
made a fifteen-mile march over miraculously frozen ground --
the road had been knee-deep mud the day before -- to Princeton.
There, the exhausted troops encountered and defeated two British
regiments rushing to reinforce Trenton. Victorious, Washington
slipped away with his men, eventually finding winter quarters in
Morristown. To the British eyes, Washington had suddenly 'shown
himself both a Fabius and Camillus,' his march an unexpected
'prodigy of generalship'." --Marc Arkin
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THE GIPPER
"Beyond those monuments to heroism is the Potomac River, and on
the far shore the sloping hills of Arlington National Cemetery
with its row on row of simple white markers bearing crosses
or Stars of David. They add up to only a tiny fraction of the
price that has been paid for our freedom.... Their lives ended in
places called Belleau Wood, The Argonne, Omaha Beach, Salerno and
halfway around the world on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Pork Chop Hill,
the Chosin Reservoir, and in a hundred rice paddies and jungles of
a place called Vietnam. Under one such marker lies a young man --
Martin Treptow -- who left his job in a small-town barbershop in
1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on
the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between
battalions under heavy artillery fire. We are told that on his
body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading, 'My
Pledge,' he had written these words: 'America must win this war.
Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will
endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue
of the whole struggle depended on me alone'." --Ronald Reagan
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OPINION IN BRIEF
"Setbacks and tragedy are part and parcel of war and must be
accepted on the battlefield. We can and will achieve our goals
in Iraq. Waiting for war in the Saudi Arabian desert as a young
corporal in 1991, I recall reading news clippings portending
massive tank battles, fiery death from Saddam Hussein's 'flame
trenches' and bitter defeat at the hands of the fourth-largest
army in the world. My platoon was told to expect 75% casualties.
Being Marines and, therefore, naturally cocky, we still felt
pretty good about our abilities. The panicky predictions failed
to come true... Nobody from my platoon died. Strength, ingenuity
and willpower won the day. Crushing the fourth-largest army in
the world in four days seemed to crush the doubts back home...
In the spring of last year, I was a Marine captain, back with the
division for Operation Iraqi Freedom... I was again subjected to
the panicky analyses of talking heads. There weren't enough troops
to do the job, the oil fields would be destroyed, we couldn't
fight in urban terrain, our offensive would grind to a halt,
and we should expect more than 10,000 casualties... [However,]
I knew that our tempo was keeping the enemy on his heels and that
our plan would lead us to victory... Mourning our losses quietly,
the Marines drove to Baghdad, then to Tikrit, liberating the Iraqi
people while losing fewer men than were lost in Desert Storm...
Just weeks ago, I read that the supply lines were cut, ammunition
and food were dwindling, the 'Sunni Triangle' was exploding,
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was leading a widespread Shiite revolt, and
the country was nearing civil war. As I write this, the supply
lines are open, there's plenty of ammunition and food, the Sunni
Triangle is back to status quo, and Sadr is marginalized in Najaf.
Once again, dire predictions of failure and disaster have been
dismissed by American willpower and military professionalism.
War is inherently ugly and dramatic... All we ask is that
Americans stand by us by supporting not just the troops, but also
the mission. We'll take care of the rest." --Major Ben Connable,
Foreign-Area Officer and Intelligence Officer with the 1st Marine
Division, Ramadi, Iraq
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GOVERNMENT
"When [9/11] commissioner Bob Kerrey asked WTC director Alan Reiss
whether he was 'angry' (is this 'Oprah'?) the FBI didn't reveal
more about Al Qaeda before 9/11, Reiss, according to the New York
Post, 'shot back' he was angry at '19 people in an airplane,'
not the FBI. Nineteen men in an airplane is right. Of course,
if the 'chatter' before 9/11 had been listened to, these men
would have been racially profiled right off their flights.
That's the only logical conclusion of any serious inquiry into
how 9/11 might have been prevented -- one the 9/11 Commission
will never get to." --Diana West
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RE: THE LEFT
"We know John Kerry is a decorated Vietnam war hero, chiefly
because he has the annoying habit of reminding us of it every
chance he gets. We know he came home and spoke out against the
war and maybe or maybe not threw his medals or ribbons or whatever
over the White House fence. We know some of his compatriots
thought he was a good guy and some thought he was a phony, and,
and, and -- all of it ancient history. But after that -- what?
In his nearly two decades as a United States Senator, John Kerry
has not stood out as a leader on any key issue." --Cheri Jacobus
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POLITICAL FUTURES
"The incumbent party in the White House always likes to say things
are going just fine with the economy, and in this case, for the
most part, the incumbent party is right... But the challenging
party vying for the White House always likes to say things are
not fine with the economy, and in this case, in small part,
the challenging party is right. The key is who capitalizes on
that message better. Kerry's strong poll numbers, helped in no
small measure by the ongoing situation in Iraq, indicate at least
a good part of that stump speech is connecting. There are still
many months to go before the election, by which time reams of new
data will confirm what the president has been telling us for so
long -- things are getting better." --Neil Cavuto
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FOR THE RECORD
Please see above
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THE LAST WORD
"On Memorial Day, America honors her own. Yet we also remember all
the valiant young men and women from many allied nations... who
shared in the struggle here [in Europe], and in the suffering.
We remember the men and women who served and died alongside
Americans in so many terrible battles on this continent, and
beyond... The grave markers here [at Normandy] all face west,
across an ageless and indifferent ocean to the country these
men and women served and loved. The thoughts of America on this
Memorial Day turn to them and to all their fallen comrades in arms.
We think of them with lasting gratitude; we miss them with lasting
love... And we trust in the words of the Almighty God, which are
inscribed in the chapel nearby: 'I give unto them eternal life,
that they shall never perish'." --President Bush on Memorial Day
2002 at Normandy
Lex et Libertas -- Semper Vigilo, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark
Alexander, Publisher, for the editors and staff. (Please pray on
this day, and every day, for our Patriot Armed Forces standing
in harm's way around the world in defense of our liberty, and
for the families awaiting their safe return.)
This Week's Leftoons:
washtimes.com
cnsnews.com
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