Recalling a Bush Memorial Day address at Arlington

By Phil Boehmke

Today is Memorial Day, the majority of us will have the day off. Many of us will choose go to picnics, parades, cook-outs or perhaps a ball game. A large number of us will be returning home from a weekend getaway. A very select few of us will be celebrating Memorial Day Weekend in Chicago on the tax-payer's dime. I would like to share some excerpts from a particularly moving Memorial Day Address.

Today, we gather to honor those who gave everything to preserve our way of life. The men and women we honor here served for liberty. They sacrificed for liberty. And in countless acts of courage, they died for liberty. From faraway lands, they were returned to cemeteries like this one, where broken hearts received their broken bodies -- they found peace beneath the white headstones in the land they fought to defend.

It is a solemn reminder of the cost of freedom that the number of headstones in a place such as this grows with every new Memorial Day. In a world where freedom is constantly under attack and in a world where our security is challenged, the joys of liberty are often purchased by the sacrifices of those who serve a cause greater than themselves. Today we mourn and remember all who have given their lives in the line of duty. Today we lift up our hearts especially to those who have fallen in the past year.

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The soil of Arlington and other sites is filled with liberty's defenders. It is nourished by their heroism. It is watered by the silent tears of the mothers and fathers, and husbands and wives, and sons and daughters they left behind. Today we pray for God's blessing on all who grieve and ask the Almighty to strengthen and comfort them today and everyday.

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I am humbled by those who have made the ultimate sacrifice that allow a free civilization to endure and flourish. It only remains for us, the heirs of their legacy, to have the courage and the character to follow their lead -- and to preserve America as the greatest nation on earth and the last best hope for mankind.

May God bless you and may God bless America.

These poignant and inspiring words are from President George W. Bush's Memorial Day Address at Arlington National Cemetery, May 26^th 2008. As we witness the forced implementation of a freedom robbing agenda, the callous disregard of the will of the people and the sacrifice of our allies on the alter of appeasement by a corrupt political machine, let us pause to reflect on President Bush's words. "It only remains for us, the heirs of their legacy, to have the courage and the character to follow their lead -- and to preserve America as the greatest nation on earth and the last best hope for mankind."

paboehmke@yahoo.com