Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:13
D-Day, also called the Battle of Normandy, was fought on June 6, 1944, between the Allied nations and German forces occupying Western Europe. To this day, 74 years later, it still remains the largest seaborne invasion in history. Almost three million troops crossed the English Channel from England to Normandy to be used as human cannon fodder in an invasion of occupied France.
Among the young men who stepped off those boats, in a hail of gunfire, was a fellow named Edward, whom everyone called Ned, from the small town of Helena, Arkansas. Already in his young life, Ned had been forced to drop out of school in the sixth grade, in order to work at the local movie theatre to help support his mother, brother, and sister, faced with the ravages of the Great Depression.
He was a gentle man who loved to laugh and sing, having recorded several 78 rpm records in the do-it-yourself booths of the day. And now, he found himself, a Master Sergeant in an Army Engineering Unit, stepping off a boat into the unknown, watching his comrades being mercilessly gunned down around him.
Ned, along with the rest of his unit who survived the initial assault, would go on to assist in the cleaning out of the Concentration Camps, bearing witness to man’s inhumanity to man.
The horrors he saw had a profound effect on Ned. One which he would keep to himself for the remainder of his life. While his children knew that he served with an Engineering Unit in World War II, they did not know the full extent of his service, until they found his medal, honoring his participation in the Invasion of Normandy, going through his belongings, after he passed away on December 29, 1997.
That brave American Hero was my Daddy.
On a night in 1966, I was 7 years old, laying on my family’s den couch in Memphis, TN, watching my favorite TV Series “Batman” with a fever of 105, brought about by a severe bronchial infection. Tending to me were 3 veterans of World War II: my Daddy, my Uncle “R” (Robert), US Air Force, and my Uncle Perriman, a full-blooded Indian from Albuquerque, who was an Army Corpsman.
Those three veterans, now all gone, took turns putting cold wash cloths under my arms and on my forehead, until my fever finally broke, sometime during the night.
Today being Veterans Day , I find myself thinking about my Daddy,
While watching TV and perusing through Facebook Political Pages a while back, I stumbled upon a meme that, as a Christian American, having been led to Christ by my Daddy, almost made me lose my witness.
This special individual had a posted a painting of Adolph Hitler in full Nazi Uniform, with the graphic
HOW MANY LIKES CAN THIS WWII VETERAN GET?
Needless to say, I let young “Skillet” know how I felt about his attempt to be “conversational”.
He suggested that I was “triggered”.
I replied that “This isn’t about being triggered. It’s about the difference between right and wrong.”
Please allow me to elaborate…
There has been a question gnawing at me for quite a while now, ever since all of the Astroturf National Protests featuring the Women’s Marches, the School Walkouts for Gun Control, illegal aliens, and millennials in desperate need of a “safe space” dressed in black hoods calling themselves “Antifa” started greeting average Americans like you and me when we turned on the television to watch the news, and the Soviet-style “Impeachment Inquiry currently being held by the Democrats to overturn the results of the 2016 President Election.
If America was led by the likes of Modern American Liberals during the frightening days when Hitler rose to power after the Beer Hall Putsch and that faithful day of December 7, 1941, “a day which will live in infamy”, while at the same time the young Americans of that era were the millennials of today, would America have stood up the Axis of Evil?
Would the millennials that we are watching throwing hissy fits and railing against the President and traditional American Faith and Values on the Evening News and the Social Media have the guts to do what the Greatest Generation did?
Would Modern American Liberals be willing to make the sacrifices that my Daddy and Mother and the rest of their generation did?
I seriously doubt it.
There wouldn’t be long lines at the Armed Forces Recruitment Office trying to sign up to serve their country.
Heck, these days it is hard to get them to move out of their parents’ house, much less be willing to fight and die for their country.
There are those millennials out there who would rather defecate on our flag than to die for it.
And, while they talk a good game about being “Stronger Together”, when the rubber meets the road, it’s every man (or woman) for themselves.
Instead of the Greatest Generation, we are presently having to deal with the selfish “Generation Snowflake”.
It’s like watching an angry child in their Mom’s shopping cart at Walmart.
There are no absolutes with them.
A lot of them simply have no “attitude of gratitude” and no sense of the blessings which they have received simply by being born in America.
Nor do they seem to understand where this freedom which they flaunt comes from and how much American Blood was spilled so that they might act like ungrateful, ill-mannered brats on Social Media.
And, when I think about it, that it why it was such a shock to them that the rest of us voted against their vision of America on November 8th, 2016. In fact, it was such a shock to these culturally hip Americans that they have been throwing a National Temper Tantrum over the election of Donald J. Trump as our 45th President ever since and taking it out on all of us average Americans on Social Media every chance that they get.
Proverbs 22:6 advises us to
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
What the disrespectful members of this generation continue to demonstrate on a daily basis is the fact that they did not have a “Board of Education” applied to their “seat of Knowledge” when the situation called for it.
“Triggered”? I guess I was.
Because my Daddy and Mother raised me in the way I should go.
Today and every day, may God bless our Veterans and may we, as grateful Americans, always honor them for their service.
Until He Comes,
KJ
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