Posted by
KsReaganite on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 11:00:00 AM
Ninety years ago, the guns fell silent on the bloody Flanders fields as the First World War came to an end at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the calendar. Four of the bloodiest years in human history mercifully concluded with the armistice between the Austro-German empires and the Allied forces of the British Commonwealth and the United States. We said then, 'never again'...and promptly forgot. The result was another war, a much bigger one, between the same protagonists within one generation of the November 11, 1918 armistice. Therein is a lesson for every generation, beautifully captured by Thomas Jefferson's dictum that 'the price of liberty is eternal vigilance'. Only seven years removed from the most horrific attack on our soil, we already seem to be letting down vigilance, losing the appetite for fighting, ready to turn over to the lawyers the affairs of the realm.
Fighting wars is ugly and preparing for them costly in material and emotional terms. President Reagan said it well that while there is no guarantee that wars will bring peace, there is only one sure guarantee of peace: surrender. Thankfully, successive generations of Americans have resisted the temptation to fall for that temptation of peace. This is not a good time to be a serviceman for either you are facing enemy bullets or you are used as props in political campaigns by cynical politicians who have never seen a battlefield except on their plasma tv. And if you happen to be one of those decent politicians who actually has suffered and endured mightily, then elite effiminate journalists are likely to mock you war wounds and disheveled appearance.
How quickly we forget, as an old veteran put it:
That it is not the poet,
but the soldier who maintains our freedom of expression;
It is not the
journalist, but the soldier who maintains our freedom of speech;
It is
not the lawyer, but the soldier who maintains the greatest system of justice in
the world;
And it is not the politician, but the soldier who provides
for our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
Beautiful, simple words..way above the pay grade of the august members of the National Press Club or the American Bar Association.