The Price of Freedom

This is an image from the Traveling Vietnam Memorial that made a stop in Midwest City, OK a few years ago. It is a 1/2 size replica of the memorial that is in Washington, D.C., and even at 1/2 the size it is a stunning sight. From the time I first read it, I've been unable to get the sentence "The Price of Freedom is Written on the Wall" out of my mind. As it applies to Vietnam it's written on this wall about 58,000 times, but the price of freedom is also written on headstones and memorials from Arlington National Cemetary to Iwo Jima to Normandy to Edmond, OK.

It would be nice to think that peace could be accomplished at a negotiating table and sealed with the stroke of a pen. It would be great if we could all just shake hands and get along. Unfortunately that is not the case. Sometimes you have to use force to protect your way of life. Sometimes you have to roll tanks and drop bombs to stop evil dictators. How many more lives would have been lost if Hitler had not been stopped. The Greatest Generation wasn't made great by sitting at home and staying out of harm's way. They are great because of how they persevered through war, what they learned from it, and what they accomplished. Hitler was not stopped with a treaty; he was stopped by force. Our nation is certainly better because of those who sacrificed their lives, but American soldiers saved the world from the tyrannical Nazi regime. Only time will tell us what effect the current war will have on the world, but we have already seen a regime change, historic elections and democracy begining to take hold.

It's been said that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag.

"We make war that we may live in peace" - Aristotle

"I swear upon the altar of God eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson

"No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace from his acquiescence." - Woodrow Wilson

"There is no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: Defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must." - Tony Blair

"Except for ending slavery, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, war has never solved anything." - www.protestwarrior.com