Tag: D-Day

My Wish For Father’s Day 2022

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

Fathers-Day-Wishes-With-Images

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, 78 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 later went on to help build the US Highway 49 Helena Bridge across the Mississippi River at Helena, Arkansas.

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.

He was my Daddy.

Today, all across the world, Fathers will be honored by their children, natural, adopted, foster, and those whom they took in as one of their own.

Did you ever wonder how this Global Remembrance got started?

There are two stories which are attributed as being the origin of Father’s Day.

According to the first tale, it all began in 1910, when Sonora Smart-Dodd of Spokane, Washington, tried to figure out a way in which to honor her dad, a remarkable man, who had single-handedly raised six children. Sonora, naturally, loved her dad with all her heart, and wanted everyone to recognize him for what he had done for her entire family. She made the decision to declare day of tribute, a Father’s Day, if you will, on her father’s birthday – June 19.

The next year, Sonora contacted the local churches in an attempt to get them to throw their support behind the celebration, but they simply laughed her off. After that setback, it took a while before Sonora’s proposal once again started gaining attention.

A bill in support of a national remembrance of Father’s Day was introduced in 1913. The bill was approved by US President Woodrow Wilson three years later. The bill received further support from President Calvin Coolidge in 1924.

This brought about the formation of a National Father’s Day Committee in New York within the next two years. However, our Federal Government, not exactly being strong in the pursuit alacrity, took another 30 years before a Joint Resolution of Congress officially recognized Father’s Day. Then, implementation of the bill was postponed another 16 years until President Richard Nixon declared third Sunday of June as Father’s Day in 1972.

The second story of the origin of Father’s Day involves Dr. Robert Webb of West Virginia. According to this version, the first Father’s Day service was conducted by Webb at the Central Church of Fairmont in 1908.

Around my house, we always thought that Hallmark and Walmart invented it.

Like you other fathers out there, I am asked every year what I want for my Father’s Day Gift.

The one present I want…I can’t have.

I wish that I had one more day with my Daddy.

My Daddy was the most important man in my life and remains so to this day.

He taught me how to love others through his actions every day of his life. He was a wonderful Christian man, who led me to Christ.

He was also the bravest man I have ever known, landing at Normandy Beach on D-Day.

My Daddy worked hard all of his life. He worked for Sears for 20 years. He taught me what hard work was and yet he always had time for me.

I wish that I had one more day to walk through Court Square Park in Memphis, Tennessee feeding the pigeons and the squirrels with my Daddy.

I wish that I had another opportunity to sit on the living room floor at Christmas and play Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots with him.

I wish that I had another chance to stand over to the side on Thanksgiving Afternoon and watch him, as he played Penny-ante Poker, “cutting up” with my mother and my aunts and uncles.

I wish that I could hear him singing “The Old Rugged Cross” in the kitchen again, with his beautiful tenor voice.

I wish that I could watch him again, sitting at the breakfast table simultaneously looking through his old Cokesbury Hymnbook and his Book on Hymnology, researching those great old hymns and making notes, so that he could tell his 150 member Sunday School Class about the hymn which he was going to lead them in singing that Sunday Morning.

I wish that I could watch my Daddy playing with my baby daughter again, sticking out the lower plate of his dentures, as she tried to grab it.

I wish that I could see them again out in the driveway, sitting in his 1978 Chevrolet Caprice Classic with her in the driver’s seat as they waited for the school bus to pick her up for pre-school.

I wish that I could spend another Christmas Morning with him to watch the fun as he gave my sister her yearly “gag gift”, just to watch her jump and squeal as the “snake” or “mouse” jumped out of the box.

I wish that I could sit and watch Saturday Morning Memphis Wrestling and then another Johnny Weissmuller “Tarzan” movie with him on a Saturday afternoon…or maybe a Three Stooges Short, just to hear him laugh.

It’s funny, y’know.

I look in the mirror at 63 years old…and, I see him.

I look back over the years at the things that I did with the children that God brought into my life to care for and then I see the things that I’m doing now with my 14 year old grandson, and I see my Daddy in myself.

Nowadays in America, it is harder than ever to be a Dad.  Any male who is not impotent can sire a child…as is being proven daily across our country.

However, it takes a man to be a Daddy, a Papa, a Pop, a Pops, somebody’s Old Man, or simply, a Father.

I’ve had the privilege of having a hand in raising three step-sons, one nephew, and one very special daughter.  I would not give back one moment of those experiences for anything that this world can offer.

I was not a perfect role model.  I made mistakes…a lot of them.  But, looking back, I know, in my heart, that I’ve made a difference in their lives. And, I thank the One Who Made Me for that opportunity.

I pray that I was able to pass along at least some of my Daddy’s Legacy of Christian Love to those I have had a hand in raising.

Dads…it costs nothing to pay attention….and give love.

Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it. – Proverbs 22:6

Daddy, I wish you were here so I could tell you how much I love you and miss you.

I hope you’re proud of me.

Every good thing that I am, came from the life lessons which I learned from you and the Love and Amazing Grace of my Heavenly Father.

Today, while you’re up in Heaven, I hope you hug Mother and tell her,

That’s “Baby Brother”!

I love you very much, Daddy.

Happy Fathers Day.

Love,

“Brother”

Until He Comes,

KJ

DONATIONS ARE WELCOME AND APPRECIATED.

One-Time
Monthly
Yearly

Make a one-time donation

Make a monthly donation

Make a yearly donation

Choose an amount

$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00
$5.00
$15.00
$100.00

Or enter a custom amount

$

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

Your contribution is appreciated.

DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearly

Veterans Day and the “No Greater Love” of Our Brightest and Best

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

 

veterans-day-discounts-article-image

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

 

Veterans Day and the “No Greater Love” of Our Brightest and Best

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics1 Comment

bible-american-flag1

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 Wakouts for Gun Control, illegal aliens, and millennials in desperate need of a “safe space” dressed in black hood calling themselves “Antifa” started greeting average Americans like you and me when we turned on the television to watch the news.

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

 

Memorial Day 2018: “Freedom Is Not Free”

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

memorial-day-cemetery

Memorial Day isn’t just about honoring veterans, its honoring those who lost their lives. Veterans had the fortune of coming home. For us, that’s a reminder of when we come home we still have a responsibility to serve. It’s a continuation of service that honors our country and those who fell defending it. – Pete Hegseth

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.

Today is a day of solemn remembrance, during which we honor our fallen heroes.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead” (Source: Duke University’s Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860’s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 – 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.

This Day of Remembrance, honoring the sacrifices of our Brightest and Best is very personal to me.

On a night in 1966, a 7 year old was laying on his family’s den couch in Memphis, TN, watching his favorite TV Series “Batman” with a fever of 105, brought about by a severe bronchial infection. Tending to that sick child were 3 veterans of World War II: his Daddy, a Master Sergeant with the Army Engineers, his Uncle “R” (Robert), US Air Force, and his Uncle Perriman, a full-blooded Indian from Albuquerque, who was an Army Corpsman.

Those three veterans, now all gone, took turns putting cold washcloths under the child’s arms and on his forehead, until his fever finally broke, sometime during the night.

That child was me.

Growing up during the Vietnam War, I was privileged to have a brother-in-law who served in the Navy. I also knew a fella who served in the Army, a friend of my older sister’s, who stayed on our couch during high school often, after fighting with his family. And, I had a cousin who served then, as well.

Recently, in America, our Brightest and Best are being callously mistreated by an incompetent authoritarian centralized bureaucracy. One whose cavalier attitude toward them as being simply pawns, to be used to give their lives for a failed Foreign Policy and the morale-weakening Social Experimentation of Barack Hussein Obama and his Progressive Minions, led to our veterans dying, while they waited for the Medical Treatment, which they had been promised and so richly deserved.

For all of his photo ops and posing for the cameras, United States President Barack Hussein Obama viewed our armed forces as beneath him… assets to use when he needed to, in order to backup his failed foreign policy, and an ancillary service to trim, when it was time to cut the budget.

Obama’s actions were in stark contrast to our previous president, George W Bush, who, every year at Thanksgiving, would go and serve Turkey to troops stationed around the world, during secret trips that Main Stream Media would not even know about until the president landed at the base.

And, when Bush wasn’t doing that, he was secretly visiting our wounded warriors at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC, again, out of the limelight of the cameras.

Even though Bush is no longer president, he is still showing his respect for our wounded warriors. He has held picnics in their honor, visiting with them and dancing with our brave young ladies who were wounded in the service of their country.

But, I digress…

The actions of Obama and his Administration were not how a nation is supposed its wounded warriors.

I thank God that we have an American President, once again, who respects and honors our Fighting Men and Women.

These men and women are OUR FAMILY. They are not just numbers on some Federal Government Profit & Loss Database.

President Trump must fulfill his campaign promises to clean up the Department of Veterans Affairs and the malfeasance and abuses found within its hospitals.

Those who have sacrificed so much for our country deserve no less.

I was privileged to be raised by members of the Greatest Generation. The legacy that they gave to me of love of God, Family, and Country is a heritage that I hold very dear.

It is today that we pause to remember their sacrifices at home and abroad. Not only theirs, but the sacrifices made by our Brightest and Best, and their families, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:13

May God bless them all and may He hold them in the hollow of His hand.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Veterans Day Weekend and the “No Greater Love” of Our Brightest and Best – A KJ Sunday Morning Reflection

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

bible-american-flag1

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, 70 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 his 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.

It being Veterans Day yesterday, I found myself thinking about my Daddy all day, while I was working.

He was still on my mind as I settled into my side of our double recliner with my wife next to me.

While watching TV and perusing through Facebook Political Pages, 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 BLM, illegal aliens, and millennials in desperate need of a “safe space” started greeting average Americans like you and me when we turned on the television to watch the news.

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 American 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.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Memorial Day 2017: “Greater Love Hath No Man Than This…”

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

memorial-day-true-meaning-ftr

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, 70 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.

Today is a day of solemn remembrance, during which we honor our fallen heroes.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead” (Source: Duke University’s Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860’s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 – 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee. 

This Day of Remembrance, honoring the sacrifices of our Brightest and Best and the current mistreatment of America’s Veterans is very personal to me.

On a night in 1966, a 7 year old was laying on his family’s den couch in Memphis, TN, watching his favorite TV Series “Batman” with a fever of 105, brought about by a severe bronchial infection. Tending to that sick child were 3 veterans of World War II: his Daddy, a Master Sergeant with the Army Engineers, his Uncle “R” (Robert), US Air Force, and his Uncle Perriman, a full-blooded Indian from Albuquerque, who was an Army Corpsman.

Those three veterans, now all gone, took turns putting cold washcloths under the child’s arms and on his forehead, until his fever finally broke, sometime during the night.

That child was me.

Growing up during the Vietnam War, I was privileged to have a brother-in-law who served in the Navy. I also knew a fella who served in the Army, a friend of my older sister’s, who stayed on our couch during high school often, after fighting with his family. And, I had a cousin who served then, as well.

Today, in America, our Brightest and Best are being callously mistreated by an incompetent authoritarian centralized bureaucracy. One whose cavalier attitude toward them as being simply pawns, to be used to give their lives for a failed Foreign Policy and the morale-weakening Social Experimentation of Barack Hussein Obama and his Progressive Minions, lead to our veterans dying, while they waited for the Medical Treatment, which they had been promised and so richly deserve.

For all of his photo ops and posing for the cameras, United States President Barack Hussein Obama viewed our armed forces as beneath him… assets to use when he needed to, in order to backup his failed foreign policy, and an ancillary service to trim, when it was time to cut the budget.

Obama’s actions were in stark contrast to our previous president, George W Bush, who, every year at Thanksgiving, would go and serve Turkey to troops stationed around the world, during secret trips that Main Stream Media would not even know about until the president landed at the base.

And, when Bush wasn’t doing that, he was secretly visiting our wounded warriors at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC, again,  out of the limelight of the cameras.

Even though Bush is no longer president, he is still showing his respect for our wounded warriors. He has held picnics in their honor, visiting with them and dancing with our brave young ladies who were wounded in the service of their country.

But, I digress…

The actions of Obama and his Administration were not how a nation is supposed its wounded warriors.

I thank God that we have an American President, once again, who respects and honors our Fighting Men and Women.

These men and women are OUR FAMILY. They are not just numbers on some Federal Government Profit & Loss Database.

President Trump must fulfill his campaign promises to clean up the Department of Veterans Affairs and the malfeasance and abuses found within its hospitals.

Those who have sacrificed so much for our country deserve no less.

I was privileged to be raised by members of the Greatest Generation. The legacy that they gave to me of love of God, Family, and Country is a heritage that I hold very dear.

It is today that we pause to remember their sacrifices at home and abroad.  Not only theirs, but the sacrifices made by our Brightest and Best, and their families, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:13

May God bless them all and may He hold them in the hollow of His hand.

Until He Comes,

KJ

France Surrenders Again. Only This Time, the Invaders Shout “Allahu Akbar”, Instead of “Heil Hitler”

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

s.yimg_.com9ed533d01f1ebed4a607a9290-9f7d1fa36b9d1c8226346c82b4c515383774d6b4FOR SALE: One Vintage World War II Rifle. Dropped once. Never fired.

Surrender #1

In France, people had shaken their heads in disbelief upon the announcement of a new war with Germany. This would be their third major war against the Germans in the last 70 years. Their grandfathers had fought the war of 1870-71, which the French had lost. Their fathers had fought the First World War from 1914-18. And now this.

The great problem for France was that civilian indifference toward this new war was shared by rank and file soldiers of the French Army.

The French officer corps also had its problems. Senior army leaders had witnessed first-hand the horrific carnage of World War I when men died by the tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, during battles of attrition at places like Verdun. Haunted by this legacy, they cautiously committed the entire French Army to a defensive posture this time around, thereby passing up the chance to take quick action that could have drastically changed the course of this new war.

With the German Army entirely preoccupied in Poland, the French had a huge numerical and tactical advantage on Germany’s western border. A hundred well-equipped French divisions stood in place all along the border, while Hitler had just 23 lightly equipped divisions set up as a defensive screen to hold them back. At this point, a French thrust into western Germany targeting the military industries of the Ruhr Valley would have, at the very least, disabled the German war machine by curtailing armaments production, the lifeblood of Hitler’s Army.

Instead, the French held their positions, content to rely on a series of newly built steel and concrete fortifications known as the Maginot Line to ward off a potential German invasion. Four British divisions soon joined the French and also stood by on the defensive. Like the French, the British were commanded by cautious generals who had survived the blood-stained battlefields of World War I.

Worse for the French, the country was beset by bitter and disruptive political in-fighting which caused government leaders to become indecisive at a moment of great national peril. Closely watching all of this, Hitler correctly concluded France’s political leadership, officer corps, and soldiers, really didn’t have the stomach for a fight this time around.  – historyplace.com

…Paul Reynaud and his government now left the French capital and moved to Tours. On 14th June, the Germans occupied Paris. Reynaud now realized that the German offensive could not be halted and suggested that the government should move to territories it owned in North Africa. This was opposed by his vice-premier, Henri-Philippe Petain, and the supreme commander of the armed forces, General Maxime Weygand. They insisted that the government should remain in France and seek an armistice.

Outvoted, Reynaud resigned and President Albert Lebrun, appointed Petain as France’s new premier. He immediately began negotiations with Adolf Hitler and on 22nd June signed an armistice with Germany. The terms of the agreement divided France into occupied and unoccupied zones, with a rigid demarcation line between the two. The Germans would directly control three-fifths of the country, an area that included northern and western France and the entire Atlantic coast. The remaining section of the country would be administered by the French government at Vichy under Marshal Henri-Philippe Petain.

Other provisions of the armistice included the surrender of all Jews living in France to the Germans. The French Army was disbanded except for a force of 100,000 men to maintain domestic order. The 1.5 million French soldiers captured by the Germans were to remain prisoners of war. The French government also agreed to stop members of its armed forces from leaving the country and instructed its citizens not to fight against the Germans. Finally, France had to pay the occupation costs of the German troops. – Spartacus-educational.com

Surrender #2 

YahooNews.com reported that

A third of French voters declined to choose between centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen in Sunday’s presidential election, either abstaining or spoiling their ballots — a record rate in nearly half a century.According to official results with more than 80 percent of votes counted, the abstention rate stood at 24.52 percent — the highest since the presidential election in 1969.

In addition, the interior ministry reported a record number of blank and invalid ballots, accounting for nine percent of all registered voters, compared to two percent in the first round.

“That would make a total of one French person out of three who decided not to choose between the two candidates. It’s really a lot for a presidential election,” Anne Jadot, political science professor at the University of Lorraine, told AFP.

Macron claimed a thumping victory Sunday with some 65 percent of the vote, but it was the first time since the 1969 election that participation in the second round has been lower than in the first, which saw him and Le Pen go through to the run-off as the highest-scoring candidates.

“The presence of the far-right in the second round did not prompt a lot of mobilisation compared to the first round, in contrast to what happened in 2002,” Jadot said in reference to the election where Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie saw voters of all stripes mobilise to block him by backing his opponent, conservative Jacques Chirac.

That election saw a dip in the abstention rate to 20.3 percent.

But this year, “there wasn’t the ‘shock’ effect, because (Marine Le Pen’s) presence was expected,” Jadot said.

Casting a blank ballot — traditionally used by disgruntled French voters as a protest vote — usually increases in the second round.

But this year it went as far as to quadruple, thanks in part to an unprecedented situation of neither the two mainstream left-leaning or right-leaning parties making it to the run-off.

Remember the part in the first cited quote which I presented, where it said that “The great problem for France was that civilian indifference toward this new war was shared by rank and file soldiers of the French Army”?

That indifference eventually required other nations to join together to defeat France’s Nazi Invaders in a battle which sacrificed almost a quarter of a million brave young men.

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, 70 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.

There has never been an exact count of the sacrifices made on D-Day. Although, it is estimated that more than 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded, or went missing during the battle. 209,000 of those who lost their lives were Allied forces. In addition to almost 200,000 German troops killed or wounded, the Allies also captured 200,000 soldiers. Captured Germans were sent to American prisoner-of-war camps at the rate of 30,000 per month, from D-Day until Christmas 1944. Between 15,000 and 20,000 French civilians were killed during the battle.

Today, France is no longer in danger of an invasion of German Nazis.

Instead, their invasion has begun from within.

France has a history of decades of Islamic Extremism.

It has pursued an immigration plan of assimilation with the Muslims entering France, often winding up with them being “placed” in slums and depressed areas of France, which have led to their radicalization at the hands of willing mentors.

The Terrorist Organization known as ISIS has sought out those disgruntled Muslims in  France and has used them as tools to both polarize and terrorize the French Citizenry.

On one side, you have average Frenchmen, who are worried about the continued sovereignty of their nation. On the other side, you have France’s Liberals, who, like their ancestors before them in the years before the Nazi Invasion of France are indifferent to the growing threat around them.

By electing the “Teacher’s Pet Moderate” Macron, the French have set the scene for another takeover of their country.

Only, this time, there won’t be any allies sacrificing their brave young men to win back their Sovereign Nation when they lose it to a bunch of Barbaric Invaders.

Until He Comes,

KJ

“Concern” About Trump’s Syrian Strike: Does America’s Compassion and Backbone End at Our Borders? (A KJ Saturday Morning Op Ed)

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics1 Comment

Response-600a-CI

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last – but eat you he will. – President Ronald Reagan

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, almost 73 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.

There has never been an exact count of the sacrifices made on D-Day. Although, it is estimated that more than 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded, or went missing during the battle. 209,000 of those who lost their lives were Allied forces. In addition to almost 200,000 German troops killed or wounded, the Allies also captured 200,000 soldiers. Captured Germans were sent to American prisoner-of-war camps at the rate of 30,000 per month, from D-Day until Christmas 1944. Between 15,000 and 20,000 French civilians were killed during the battle.

Basically, the invasion of Normandy was a success, due to sheer force of numbers. By July 1944, some one million Allied troops, mostly American, British, and Canadian, were entrenched in Normandy. During the great invasion, the Allies assembled nearly three million men and stored 16 million tons of arms, munitions, and supplies in Britain.

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, while going through his belongings, after he passed away on December 29, 1997.

I know this story is true because Ned was my Daddy. His birthday was Sunday, April 2nd.

I retell his story because of some of the reactions that I received to my article yesterday about President Trump’s Surgical Strike on the Syrian Air Force Base.

According to some commenters, we should not have cared that Syrian President Assad was slaughtering his own people…men, women, children, and babies, through the means of chemical weapons, which Former President Barack Hussein Obama and Former Secretary of State John Kerry assured us that the Radical Islamic Madman did not possess.

The horrific images of those innocent little ones struggling to breathe their last breaths or simply lying there, already gone to meet the One Who Made Them, did not move these commenters at all.

Oh, no. They were much too politically astute for that.

It makes me wonder…what would have been their reaction to the boxcars full of European Jewish Families headed to Hitler’s Concentration Camps?

Would they have ignored what was happening to those around them?

Would they have waved as the trains went past?

And, don’t give me that usual bull that the United States of America does the same thing as Syria.

America is the most generous country on the face of God’s Green Earth.

The Faith of Our Father has imbued us with a Legacy of Courage and Caring.

…And a sense of right and wrong.

My parents and the other members of the Greatest Generation were a living testimony  to my statement.

America cannot afford to be an isolated nation.

Trump fired a warning shot, reasserting our strength as a nation and our place as a World Leader.

Enough with the pearl-clutching.

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Remembering D-Day: 72 Years Later…A Tale of Two Soldiers

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

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, 70 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.

The twelve nations who participated in the invasion included Australia, Canada, Belgium, France, Czechoslovakia, Greece, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United Kingdom, and, of course. the United States of America.

The codename for the invasion was Operation Overlord. The assault phase was known as Operation Neptune. Operation Neptune began on D-Day (June 6, 1944) and ended on June 30. Operation Overlord also began on D-Day, and ended with the crossing of the River Seine on August 19.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower faced a daunting task in the planning of such a massive invasion. He would have to move his forces 100 miles across the English Channel and storm a heavily fortified coastline. His enemy was the weapon-and-tank-superior German army commanded by the “Desert Fox” Erwin Rommel, one of the most brilliant generals of the war.

Less than 15 percent of the young men called upon to sacrifice their lives for our freedom in the invasion had ever seen combat.

A crossing of the unpredictable and dangerous English Channel had not been attempted since 1688. Once the invading forces set out, there was no turning back. The channel was soon hosting a 5,000-vessel armada that stretched as far as the eye could see, transporting both men and vehicles across the channel to the French beaches. Not to mention, the Allies also launched 4,000 smaller landing craft and more than 11,000 aircraft.

By the time the sun set on June 6, more than 9,000 Allied soldiers were dead or wounded, and more than 100,000 had made it ashore, capturing French coastal villages. Within weeks, supplies were being unloaded at Utah and Omaha beachheads at the rate of more than 20,000 tons per day. By June 11, more than 326,000 troops, 55,000 vehicles, and 105,000 tons of supplies had been landed on the beaches. By June 30, the Allies had established a firm foothold in Normandy. Allied forces crossed the River Seine on August 19.

There has never been an exact count of the sacrifices made on D-Day. Although, it is estimated that more than 425,000 Allied and German troops were killed, wounded, or went missing during the battle. 209,000 of those who lost their lives were Allied forces. In addition to almost 200,000 German troops killed or wounded, the Allies also captured 200,000 soldiers. Captured Germans were sent to American prisoner-of-war camps at the rate of 30,000 per month, from D-Day until Christmas 1944. Between 15,000 and 20,000 French civilians were killed during the battle.

Basically, the invasion of Normandy was a success, due to sheer force of numbers. By July 1944, some one million Allied troops, mostly American, British, and Canadian, were entrenched in Normandy. During the great invasion, the Allies assembled nearly three million men and stored 16 million tons of arms, munitions, and supplies in Britain.

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, while going through his belongings, after he passed away on December 29, 1997.

The second soldier in this tale was born 41 years after D-Day, in Sun Valley Idaho, to a pair of “Devout Calvinists”, who homeschooled him and his sister, while their parents both worked at jobs, which according to a famous national magazine in 2012, were “nearly off the grid”.

At 16, tired of being cooped up at home, the young man went in search of fencing lessons, and wound up being a ballet “lifter”, moving in with the girl he was “lifting”.

At 20, he left for France, to learn to speak French and join the Foreign legion. Failing miserably at that, he returned home,where he worked for a few years at a local coffee shop.

He joined the Army in 2008, and arrived in Eastern Afghanistan in 2009.

According to his parents, and the “national magazine”, this young man had “a heart for the Afghan people”, which led him to become disgusted with the actions of our nation, whom he was supposed to be fighting for.

The young man would detail his disillusionment with the Afghanistan campaign in an email to his parents three days before he went missing.

“I am sorry for everything here,” he wrote. “These people need help, yet what they get is the most conceited country in the world telling them that they are nothing and that they are stupid.”

Bergdahl also complained about fellow soldiers. The battalion commander was a “conceited old fool,” he said, and the only “decent” sergeants, planning to leave the platoon “as soon as they can,” told the privates — Bergdahl then among them — “to do the same.”

“I am ashamed to be an American. And the title of US soldier is just the lie of fools,” he concluded. “I am sorry for everything. The horror that is America is disgusting.”

His father responded in an email: “OBEY YOUR CONSCIENCE!”

This young man would then desert his post, for the second time, concluding a pair of calculated moves, proven by the fact that he sent his laptop and his personal journal, back to his mother and father.

On his second “walkabout”, he was taken in by local Afghan Muslim Terrorists, with whom he lived for 5 years, converting to their religion and declaring himself a “WARRIOR FOR ISLAM” in 2010.

Some Liberal supporters say his purpose in leaving the base was an attempt to “broker a peace deal”. Others, within his own unit, believe that he wanted to “aid and abed the enemy”.

As far as his “conversion” goes, his defenders are claiming that he did it to insure his own survival, unlike former POWs, who chose death to renouncing God and Country.

The young man was flownt back to the country that he betrayed, his freedom having been secured through the release of 5 of the enemy: high-ranking Muslim Terrorists, who had sworn an oath to “destroy the Great Satan” (That’s US.)

Of course, that young man was Bowe Bergdahl.

The man responsible for this inequitable deal is the unapologetic President of the United States of America Barack Hussein Obama, the product of an Islamic Private School for the wealthy in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Since that incomprehensible prisoner swap, the New York Post reported that at least 3 of the 5 Muslim Terrorists have attempted to resume their barbarism.

Bergdahl has yet to face a Court Martial for his desertion.

That will have to happen under a United States President who actually loves this country.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? And, how do I know so much about Ned?

Ned was my Daddy.  You see, my love of Christ and, of this country, comes from my Earthly father, 40 years my senior.

I was raised by members of the Greatest Generation.  It is today that we pause to remember their sacrifices at home and abroad.

May this day also serve as a reminder of the sacrifices made by our Brightest and Best and their families, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

May God bless them all and may He hold them in the hollow of His hand.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Memorial Day 2016: All Gave Some. Some Gave All.

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

11181888_951956908181692_5591918853436467361_nD-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, 70 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.

Today is a day of solemn remembrance, during which we honor our fallen heroes.

Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation’s service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women’s groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, “Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping” by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication “To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead” (Source: Duke University’s Historic American Sheet Music, 1850-1920). While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it’s difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day. It is more likely that it had many separate beginnings; each of those towns and every planned or spontaneous gathering of people to honor the war dead in the 1860’s tapped into the general human need to honor our dead, each contributed honorably to the growing movement that culminated in Gen Logan giving his official proclamation in 1868. It is not important who was the very first, what is important is that Memorial Day was established. Memorial Day is not about division. It is about reconciliation; it is about coming together to honor those who gave their all.

Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11, and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery. The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war). It is now celebrated in almost every State on the last Monday in May (passed by Congress with the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 – 363) to ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays), though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19 in Texas, April 26 in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10 in South Carolina; and June 3 (Jefferson Davis’ birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee. 

This Day of Remembrance, honoring the sacrifices of our Brightest and Best and the current mistreatment of America’s Veterans is very personal to me.

On a night in 1966, a 7 year old was laying on his family’s den couch in Memphis, TN, watching his favorite TV Series “Batman” with a fever of 105, brought about by a severe bronchial infection. Tending to that sick child were 3 veterans of World War II: his Daddy, a Master Sergeant with the Army Engineers, his Uncle “R” (Robert), US Air Force, and his Uncle Perriman, a full-blooded Indian from Albuquerque, who was an Army Corpsman.

Those three veterans, now all gone, took turns putting cold washcloths under the child’s arms and on his forehead, until his fever finally broke, sometime during the night.

That child was me.

Growing up during the Vietnam War, I was privileged to have a brother-in-law who served in the Navy. I also knew a fella who served in the Army, a friend of my older sister’s, who stayed on our couch during high school often, after fighting with his family. And, I had a cousin who served then, as well.

Today, in America, our Brightest and Best are being callously mistreated by an incompetent authoritarian centralized bureaucracy. One whose cavalier attitude toward them as being simply pawns, to be used to give their lives for a failed Foreign Policy and the morale-weakening Social Experimentation of Barack Hussein Obama and his Progressive Minions, has lead to our veterans dying, while they wait for the Medical Treatment, which they have been promised and so richly deserve.

For all of his photo ops and posing for the cameras, United States President Barack Hussein Obama views our armed forces as beneath him… assets to use what he needs to, in order to backup his failed foreign policy, and an ancillary service to trim, when it’s time to cut the budget.

Obama’s actions are in stark contrast to our previous president, George W Bush, who, every year at Thanksgiving, would go and serve Turkey to troops stationed around the world, during secret trips that Main Stream Media would not even know about until the president landed at the base.

And, when Bush wasn’t doing that, he was secretly visiting our wounded warriors at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC, again,  out of the limelight of the cameras.

Even though Bush is no longer president, he is still showing his respect for our wounded warriors. He has held picnics in their honor, visiting with them and dancing with our brave young ladies who were wounded in the service of their country.

But, I digress…

The actions of Obama and his Administration are not how a nation honors its wounded warriors. The previous Administration certainly did not treat our heroes in this manner.

The men and women are OUR FAMILY. They are not just numbers on some Federal Government Profit & Loss Database.

This barbarism lies solely at the feet of President Barack Hussein Obama. He is the Commander-in-Chief. HE MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE.

Those who have sacrificed so much for our country deserve no less.

I was privileged to be raised by members of the Greatest Generation. The legacy that they gave to me of love of God, Family, and Country is a heritage that I hold very dear.

It is today that we pause to remember their sacrifices at home and abroad.  Not only theirs, but the sacrifices made by our Brightest and Best, and their families, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

May God bless them all and may He hold them in the hollow of His hand.

Until He Comes,

KJ