Freedom

Today I attended the funeral of a man named Arden Rowley. He is the father of one of my sisters-in-law. I didn't know the man well and only saw him once or twice a year at family functions, but he was always nice to me and treated me well. One thing I didn't know about him until recently was that he was a veteran of WW II and served in Okinawa and the Philippines.

Now that resonated with me. Both of my grandfathers also served in the Pacific Theater during the war. Both saw their fair share of action and were fortunate enough to get out of there without a scratch. Just like Mr. Rowley. That's hard to imagine since the invasion of Okinawa cost plenty of brave men their lives.

Tom Brokaw called the folks that fought in the war, the greatest generation. They were certainly the bravest. The way 30k signed up the day after Pearl Harbor to the way they kept going until the the war was over. Even knowing how the Japanese and the Germans fought and then treated captured troops. They definitely had guts.

Today we are fighting another enemy that is just as vicious and has just a fanatical devotion to an ideology. And people still join the military voluntarily. My nephew Alex included. By the way, Alex is also the grandson of Arden Rowley. It seems that guts was handed down in this family.

About six years ago as my wife and I were moving from one house to another, Alex and his father Glen, my wife's brother and Arden's son in law, came to help us move. Alex, only 17 years old, divulged that he had just joined the Marine Corps Reserves. I immediately shook his hand, patted him on the back and told him how proud I was of him for joining. He had a grin from ear to ear. He told me that I was the only one in the family who had said something positive about his joining. The rest of the family thought he was nuts. After all, we were at war.

Guts.

When I married Alex's aunt and he joined the Corp, the legacy that he became a part of grew. Not only did both of my granfathers serve in the military along with Mr. Rowley, so did his paternal grandfather, Ted Mitchell. My father served as well. So did I. Now Alex and his cousin Joshua are the next generation to serve our country. Alex as a Marine and my son Joshua as a police officer.

I hated to have included myself in the last paragraph because of what I am about to type. If you enjoy the freedoms you have in this country, then you owe a debt of gratitude to people like Arden Rowley, Alex Mitchell and the rest that I have mentioned. And then to all the people that have fought along side us and of course to those that have made the ultimate sacrifice. Those that have died to protect our way of life can never be repaid. We must never forget any of these fine folks.

During this time of internal strife in our country, we must remember those that are standing up for us and allow us to continue to work out our problems.

The cost of freedom is human blood. These men have all being willing to spill theirs for the rest of us.

Thank God for them .