Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
For every one of you who has ever broken a chain, you know it snaps becomes useless at the strength of only it's weakest link.
At the beginning of this chain, and long before I was born, were the more than 25,000 who died in the revolutionary war. These people started this chain of freedom we have. We cannot fully understand all their motives or beliefs. We just know that they lived, fought, and died to forge links in the chain. Strong ones, they were, for they anchored a new nation.
And then we have the war of 1812, and the big war... the Civil War, which claimed lives of about a half million. How many didn't die, but lived, we can't calculate. But we do know, that they pulled a union back together, and in the end, they set the groundwork for the greatest political and human advancement since the links formed by their predecessors. Those, too, have proven to be links in the chain proven to be solid and unyielding.
And then there's the Spanish American War...
And World War I, the "war to end all wars". Nearly 120,000 Americans died in combat. This time our links of freedom stretched across oceans and continents. But it wasn't enough.
ABout 410,000 Americans gave their untimate sacrifice to forge the links of freedom in Europe and elsewhere by winning World War II. And then Korea, and then Vietnam. Those two claimed nearly 120,000 American lives, again in the purpose of forging those links of freedom we have, this time on other shores, in other places, for other people, in ways that were not always clear or even right. But the chain has held anyway.
And now, it's our turn.
Do our lives, the things we choose, the votes we make, the ideas we support forge strong links of freedom for our children? Will WE be the weak link?
In between these forgings of fire - the fire of war - has been the continual growth and maintenance of our freedom. The links of our chain of freedom and self-determination were just as strong in times of peace as well. They showed us through the wars, through the struggles, through changes and upheaval, but they did not break. They passed it on to us.
As you travel on Memorial Day, take time to go through the cemeteries. Walk the grounds of the memorials, and remember that every one of those people, veterans or not, were responsible for the forgings of the links in our chain of liberty that has gotten us here. Whether tested in fire of war and adversity, or formed from the determination and belief of those in peacetime, they gave us chain unbroken by anything history could deal out.
As you contemplate the names you don't know, the lives you never knew, the heros now silent and almost forgotten, remember that they have passed that job on to you and me.
Will we forge the strong links of freedom that will carry our children and their children into the future? Or are we the weakest link? All around us are the cries that "freedom costs too much", that it is old fashioned, out of style, and certainly a hazard and a risk too great to remain. It wasn't, to those who came before us. It isn't, to those who now stand and fight and die in harm's way to defend us.
So how can it be to the rest of us, who risk little, who's great burdens are little more than ballots in a box and small choices about the value of liberty and self-reliance, find it too great a risk, too large a burden, too much a load? Is it too great a task to be ever vigilant to defend freedom in a time of peace and prosperity?
Ponder that, while gazing at the flags and seeing the old men and women march in uniform. Ponder that when you see the faces of history on your money at the "memorial day sales" going on. Ponder that before your eyes close in sleep in preparation for another day. And ask God to not let it be you and me who are the weakest link.
At the beginning of this chain, and long before I was born, were the more than 25,000 who died in the revolutionary war. These people started this chain of freedom we have. We cannot fully understand all their motives or beliefs. We just know that they lived, fought, and died to forge links in the chain. Strong ones, they were, for they anchored a new nation.
And then we have the war of 1812, and the big war... the Civil War, which claimed lives of about a half million. How many didn't die, but lived, we can't calculate. But we do know, that they pulled a union back together, and in the end, they set the groundwork for the greatest political and human advancement since the links formed by their predecessors. Those, too, have proven to be links in the chain proven to be solid and unyielding.
And then there's the Spanish American War...
And World War I, the "war to end all wars". Nearly 120,000 Americans died in combat. This time our links of freedom stretched across oceans and continents. But it wasn't enough.
ABout 410,000 Americans gave their untimate sacrifice to forge the links of freedom in Europe and elsewhere by winning World War II. And then Korea, and then Vietnam. Those two claimed nearly 120,000 American lives, again in the purpose of forging those links of freedom we have, this time on other shores, in other places, for other people, in ways that were not always clear or even right. But the chain has held anyway.
And now, it's our turn.
Do our lives, the things we choose, the votes we make, the ideas we support forge strong links of freedom for our children? Will WE be the weak link?
In between these forgings of fire - the fire of war - has been the continual growth and maintenance of our freedom. The links of our chain of freedom and self-determination were just as strong in times of peace as well. They showed us through the wars, through the struggles, through changes and upheaval, but they did not break. They passed it on to us.
As you travel on Memorial Day, take time to go through the cemeteries. Walk the grounds of the memorials, and remember that every one of those people, veterans or not, were responsible for the forgings of the links in our chain of liberty that has gotten us here. Whether tested in fire of war and adversity, or formed from the determination and belief of those in peacetime, they gave us chain unbroken by anything history could deal out.
As you contemplate the names you don't know, the lives you never knew, the heros now silent and almost forgotten, remember that they have passed that job on to you and me.
Will we forge the strong links of freedom that will carry our children and their children into the future? Or are we the weakest link? All around us are the cries that "freedom costs too much", that it is old fashioned, out of style, and certainly a hazard and a risk too great to remain. It wasn't, to those who came before us. It isn't, to those who now stand and fight and die in harm's way to defend us.
So how can it be to the rest of us, who risk little, who's great burdens are little more than ballots in a box and small choices about the value of liberty and self-reliance, find it too great a risk, too large a burden, too much a load? Is it too great a task to be ever vigilant to defend freedom in a time of peace and prosperity?
Ponder that, while gazing at the flags and seeing the old men and women march in uniform. Ponder that when you see the faces of history on your money at the "memorial day sales" going on. Ponder that before your eyes close in sleep in preparation for another day. And ask God to not let it be you and me who are the weakest link.
