Analyst's note: I just received an e-mail from two fellow U.S. Marines that should be shared far and wide. First up are the comments by John Bernard, First Sergeant, USMC (Retired), then followed a letter by James Sauer, SgtMaj, USMC (Retired). Both sets of comments should make you stand just a little taller as you consider their sacrifice and service.
Our prayers and thoughts go out to Lt. Gen. Kelly, USMC and his family at this time of almost unimaginable grief from the loss of their son 2nd Lt. Robert M. Kelly.
And for the record, I didn't leave home today for even a recon at the mall. Semper Fidelis.
[....] We are living in desperate times; desperate because we have been witnesses to the erosion of the foundation that supports all things. While we can all sit and argue when that actually began, I would like to remind us all that less than 40 years after the revolution, Thomas Jefferson complained to his friend Warren that government was already out of control.
As United States government is ‘of the people’ it is safe to say that in 1823, the people had already begun to lose their vision and their responsibility of vigilance. [....]
My good friend, SgtMaj James Sauer was moved by the seeming deliberate absence of mention of the death of a fellow Marine in Afghanistan on 9 November 2010, 1stLt, Robert Kelly. I would like to preface his 'rant' with a few comments:
Our Founding Fathers understood the gravity of the stand they were taking when they penned the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution of the United States and a list of other 'seditious' writings. They did so prayerfully and with a deep sense of providential guidance. They also understood precisely what the definition of service was and who actually paid the price for their service.
Our first representatives served out their tenure without pay and for limited terms because except for a few, most men could not leave their responsibilities to their church, families, businesses, and local communities indefinitely. They had an intrinsic understanding of their responsibility to tend to these - first.
I taught my children to emulate the positive characteristics of these great men that preceded them.
They understood :
1. True Service, costs the one serving.
2. That you serve these 4 Institutions - and in this order because this is how our Creator established
them: God, Family, Country, Corps.
My Son lived this to his death.
As money always does, in time, the 27th Amendment corrupted the Constitution and all but threw open the coffer doors allowing Congress to determine for themselves how much money they 'deserved' for 'service' and when and how much their pay raises should be. To date the baseline salary for a sitting Representative is $174,000.00. The point is that without a salary 'commensurate' with their lowly electorate (I wonder how many of the electorate actually make that kind of money), only the rich could afford to serve and would thereby tip the scales of just governance to the rich.
So was traded the hope of men guided by faith in the one God, love of Family, service to Country and the living out of Oath to Corps for men and women who are intellectually and morally challenged, seeking for themselves power and avarice.
I will let the Sergeant Major's rant express what most of us feel about this nation's current state of degradation:
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“A Warrior’s Consolation”
Brothers,Our distress at the lack of coverage over Lt Kelly’s death is well justified. Lt. Kelly is not the only fallen brother ignored by those who owe him their freedom. Allow me to rant for a bit:
Those who have never gone into harm’s way or have nobody in their family (or among their close friends) serving just don’t give a damn (with few exceptions). The Congress doesn’t give a damn – they just want votes. The media doesn’t give a damn – they just want ratings. And, the president certainly doesn’t give a damn – he just wants worship.
On the whole, the American people don’t give a damn. They are complacent, will sacrifice their freedom for their comfort and their financial security, and in the process fail to realize they are losing both. A recent poll shows that more than 40% of Americans would reelect one of the most despicable human beings ever to walk the planet into the highest office in the land – again.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a unique “American” holiday. It is not celebrated anywhere else in the world. For most Americans, Thanksgiving – like Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, and The 4th of July – is just a day off from work. Most Americans sat around watching a ball game, sucking down the brew, feeding their overstuffed faces, cultivating their cellulite, and farting on the couch. Many take Friday off as well. The best thing they will do today is clog up the toilet.
Today is “Black Friday”. Nitwits are at the shopping mall as early as Zero Dark Thirty. They will stay there listening to their iPods and contemplating the latest escapades of some Hollywood nitwit until Zero Dark Thirty rolls around again.
Unlike the great migrations of previous centuries, illegal aliens flock to our shores singing West Side Story’s “Everything’s Free in American” with no intent of ever contributing. We have lost our moral compass and with it our national identity. America is no longer a melting pot. It has become a chamber pot. We are gagging with the stench of “multicultural” pollution in the national bedpan and are not allowed to scream out for fear of violating the code of Political Correctness.
America – and indeed the whole of Western Civilization – has completely lost the moral compass. Illegitimate births are the norm. Those who feel inconvenienced just kill their children in the womb at the cyclic rate of fire (4,000 per day) without a second thought. Marriage is becoming a thing of the past. Homosexual techniques are taught in the public schools, and you can marry a goat or your lawn mower if you live in Massachusetts.
The past two generations of school kids and college students – taught by teachers and professors schooled in the philosophy of Karl Marx – learned that historically America has been an international terrorist aggressor established by a pack of ill-meaning white men of European lineage: Columbus was a terrorist who infected the American Indian population with European disease; Jefferson was a slave holder fathering illegitimate kids with an African mistress; the Constitution means what you want it to mean – not what it does mean; Meriwether Lewis paved the way for the slaughter of the native population; Americans were all racists though more than 360,000 Union soldiers gave their lives to demonstrate and guarantee that “. . . all men are created equal.” Kids are taught that America is the only nation to have ever used an atomic weapon of mass destruction.
They are taught that Faith is incompatible with reason. They are infected with the ideals of the Enlightenment. Belief in God is an opiate for the masses of unwashed peasants – Man is the ultimate being in the universe – Science has all the answers. Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were simply good men of fiction (like Paul Bunyan – even though Paul and “Babe the Blue Ox” have been absorbed by oblivion). And, Mohammad, Jesus, and Moses were on the same moral par – though Mohammad was historically a butchering opportunist and probably possessed by Lucifer himself.
They reject the idea that Western Civilization progressed and excelled by the synthesis of Faith and Reason – St. Augustine was to Plato as Aquinas was to Aristotle. They neglect to teach that it was the Christian monastic orders during the “Dark Ages” that preserved agriculture, food production and preservation, and established fisheries. Monks were the first to breed cattle for milk and meat. And, they pioneered the modern techniques of the brewery and wine vineyards. It was Cistercian monks that first developed the watermill for crushing wheat (hence the term cistern). They were the technical advisors to mining, metallurgy, and quarrying. And, because the monasteries were the depositories of the libraries of learning, the first universities in Europe were founded by Christian orders. Copernicus was a Third Order Dominican! Galileo ran afoul of the Church not because of his support of Copernicus, but because he published without independent verification from another source! The “Big Bang” theory was first proposed by Georges-Henri Lemaitre – a Jesuit! The Western world, and Americans in particular, have forgotten Jean de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues, and the other North American Martyrs who endured the incredible hardships of exploration, mapping, linguistics, and evangelization in the New World while carrying out the “Great Commission” of Christ. Faith? What an old fashioned concept!
Hardly anyone under the age of forty is aware that when the Founding Father’s “mutually pledge[d] to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor” that most of them actually sacrificed the first two! Few Americans – except Marines and those who live in Maryland – have ever heard of Bladensburg. Belleau Wood is mistaken for a French wine. Helmand Province is where they make mayonnaise. The mention of Audie Murphy may prompt some mid-life-aged airhead to ask “Was he in the movies?” without ever giving a thought to his exploits and heroism in Europe. Mention John Basilone and nobody will know who you are talking about. “Midway” is the place between your house and your in-laws. Inchon and Hue City are absent from social studies curriculum. If you venture to the shopping mall today (I have no respect for you if you do!) you may find someone who will recognize the name Salvatore Giunta. They will say “Oh that sounds familiar . . .” but they won’t have a clue who his is. If you tell him that he just received the Medal of Honor, they won’t have any idea of the significance and will forget the whole conversation as they break out their new Smartphone to tweet some other moron about the sale on sneakers at Foot Locker. Paul Ray Smith, Jason Dunham, Michael Monsoor, Ross MicGinnis, Michael Murphy, and Jared Monti will mean nothing to them. Those friends and loved ones that you and I know personally who spent their lives will be forgotten to history – except where their names are engraved on a stone or monument – and in our hearts. For the bulk of Americans, heroes are brainless athletes and vapid, no-talent entertainers.
Lieutenant Kelly? Well, like our other brothers who have paid the price, his name will be passed from us to our children along that narrow generational column that still appreciates sacrifice and believes there is still hope for a country that clearly appears to be circling the drain.
If it’s any consolation (though most Americans have no clue), I believe that God Himself directs an angelic “Pass in Review” and takes the time to welcome our fallen brothers saying, “You have fought the good fight, you have finished the course, you have kept the faith. Well done my good and faithful servant!”
“Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace.”
Semper Fi,
James Sauer
