I do not like my English book very much. Scratch that. I don’t like it at all. Talk about a liberal book. It is completely biased; almost always praising far left democrats like Robert KKK Byrd and Edward Kennedy while bashing republicans such as John McCain, President Bush, Rush Limbaugh, and President Reagan. The book is “A Sequence for Academic Writing” by Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. I was reading it today (I promise you I am forced to due to the threat of pop quizzes) and came across praises of Robert KKK Byrd, Edward Kennedy, and President Clinton while it bashed Rush Limbaugh, President Reagan, and our troops. I will generally tolerate when someone takes a cheap shot at Rush because he’s used to it, it comes with the territory of his job. I get pretty mad when people attack President Reagan, but those are usually spawned from an ignorant standpoint when the people either force themselves to block out how great he was or they are massively uninformed. But nobody, NOBODY! attacks my boys. I have half a mind to send a letter to the curriculum company. My rant aside……the attack on my guys and President Reagan came in the same instance. “President Reagan was a master of emotional appeal. He closed his first inaugural address with a reference to the view from the Capitol to the Arlington National Cemetery, where lie thousands of markers of ‘heroes’…” (pg. 134) the book goes on with the quote by President Reagan (which is excellent and I will share with you in a moment). They put heroes in quote marks, thus indicating that those buried in Arlington National Cemetery are only supposed heroes. However, they are incredibly wrong. Those men and women died so that we can live in a free country; one without Gestapo on every corner, where we can lead the lives we wish, whether that is in extreme poverty or in immense wealth. Because of the Heroes buried at Arlington, and other cemeteries around the nation and world, we speak English and not Russian, German, or Japanese. We have the privilege of attending whatever type of church we want. Because of the brave men and women at Arlington, we have the privilege to vote and elect whomever we wish to the position of President, Senator, or Congressman. How dare the writers of a supposed educational tool claim our soldiers as anything but Heroes. Sounds more like and indoctrination tool to me.
As Army Staff Sergeant David Bellavia said on the radio the other day, “I’ll see your John Murtha and raise you a Marcus Luttrell.” I laughed so hard when I first heard that statement, but as the night wore on and I thought about it, I found the deeper meaning of this comical statement. Politicians know nothing of the heroism of our soldiers. I heard someone the other day praising Barack Hussein Obama for attend Harvard as a minority when it is a 95% white school. The very next sentence was the person comparing Barack Hussein Obama’s “accomplishment” to John McCain who graduated 5th from the bottom of his class at Annapolis. Oh yeah? I’d like to see scrawny, little Barack attend Annapolis, then see how far up in the class he graduates. John McCain went on to fight in Vietnam and become a prisoner of war for 7 years. He was beaten so badly that to this day he cannot even raise his arms to comb his own hair, his wife or an aid must do it for him. Now who’s the hero? Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell saw his best friends killed by the Taliban. He was shot full of bullets and shrapnel, but he refused to give in and said he kept thinking how pathetic it was that 200 Taliban couldn’t kill him. SSG David Bellavia was at the Battle of Fallujah. He ran into a house with 6 insurgents. He used 5 different weapons fighting them, and was down to hand-to-hand combat. SSG Bellavia was the only one to come out of the building alive. Lt. Michael Murphy went into the middle of crossfire to make a call to get air support for his fellow SEALs. Michael A. Monsoor jumped on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. Both he and Michael Murphy were awarded the Medal of Honor for their valor. These guys are Heroes.
Even though the book didn’t understand President Reagan’s quote, The Great Communicator once again worked his magic, though through print and not spoken word.
“Under one such marker lies a young man, Martin Treptow, who left his job in a small-town barbershop in 1917 to go to France with the famed Rainbow Division. There, on the western front, he was killed trying to carry a message between battalions under heavy artillery fire. We’re told that on his body was found a diary. On the flyleaf under the heading, ‘My Pledge,’ he had written these words: ‘America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on my alone.’ The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that Martin Treptow and so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God’s help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.”
President Reagan was right. Martin Treptow was a true Hero. He is a Hero because he preserved freedom, passed it on to us, and is an example to us all. He is only one of thousands in our history who are Heroes. As our military carries out its sworn duty “to protect and defend,” it is our duty to protect and defend them. I made a promise to myself a long time ago to do whatever I needed to in order to protect my military. Those are my boys and “I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost” to protect and defend them. They are our Heroes.
