I attended Nellis AFB's "Aviation Nation" this Saturday for the first time since coming to Vegas. It was an interesting experience in many ways. What bothered me most was the behavior of the people I saw in attendance.
This past weekend was, not only for the USA but also for the UK, our Veterans Remembrance. The words of a poem whose author remains as yet unknown to me come to mind:
It is the soldier, not the artist, who gave us freedom of expression.It is the soldier, not the journalist, who gave us freedom of the press.And it is the soldier, who fights for the flag, dies for the flag, and is buried wrapped in the flag, who allows protestors to burn the flag.
People were running, laughing, buying, and taking photographs. Few people were talking to the military personnel who lined the ropes and manned the stations, and even fewer walked around thanking those who were clearly veterans for their service. One young lady brushed past me and dropped her American flag on the ground. She laughed and said 'oops' as she stooped to retrieve it.
When they played the National Anthem, I was even less impressed. At least two uniformed personnel did not salute during the presentation, and it was not people of recent foreign ancestry who failed to observe the protocols. The offenders included older white men with cameras slung about their necks. I stood still and watched the flag descend in the hand of a paratrooper.
Everyone ooed and ahhed the displays of airpower. While they are grateful for the protection betimes, they do not think of the men and women who designed these awesome vehicles nor those who pilot them in time of war. However sad it may be that so much of our technological innovation has been driven by war, I thank God that He has blessed us to be the ones who protect it. Like Michael Sharra says in his novel "The Killer Angels": this is an army that hasn't happened much in the history of the world...this is an army out to set other men free.
Yet, that freedom is a double standard. Imagine my surprise to learn this morning that a school in Southern California has been granted permission to ban the American flag on campus during Cinco de Mayo because it might incite violence. Excuse me? This is America. If you don't like it, feel free to leave it. Apparently, it's ok for Mexicans to be offended if we fly our national flag on their independence day but not for us to be offended when they march with their flag on ours.
The older I get, the more I realize we are enslaved and do not know it. Ok, it's not as dire as 1776, but we are not as free as we think we are. Government is in our homes and heads, and they haven't the right. They meddle. You can speak and think as you like unless you endorse capitalism, God, and freedom.
Our soldiers did not die abroad so that America could become part of some global empire. In fact, in every major modern conflict, the only land America has taken has been land to bury our war dead that we could not bring home. We are the last bastion of freedom. I walked around looking at the B2 bomber, the reaper and predator drones, all the other engines of war, and I listened to the sound of the jet engines as they flew in front of us. Those are the sounds of freedom. America has made possible the only nation I know of on earth where you can hear the military coming and not fear.
In the pomp and pagentry of weekend holidays, we frequently forget for what they were intended. Too many of our events, associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, are mismanaged, not as times to remember, but as times to frolic. They are days sadly no longer remembered as they were intended. I remember the dead, including some of my own friends and kin, and those who although they did not give their last full measure of devotion nevertheless still gave their lives to protect liberty.
One of the things I told my students a few weeks ago is true for the soldiers as well. You do not join the military or go into medicine for the pay or prestige. You do it because you are willing to sacrifice your life to save someone else's. To all those who died, I close with these words: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).
Salu.
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