I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.

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And Washingtons and Lincolns, Reveres, and Paynes, Pattons and Marshalls. And those of us who love our freedom. Heroes and patriots.

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Wade:
I agree with your points and maybe I failed to make clear my intent: I was speaking of a ‘hero’ from the perspective of their selflessness towards their country. I guess I’m missing it but that’s what I meant. Politicians,soldiers, and the like, people we depend upon to have our interests in account every day they are ‘serving’. Of course, the servicemen do this, but it seems like the politicians feel that we should be thankful to have them there. Yes, we have a myriad of common heroes every day but do we have any Churchills in the wings?
I think you would agree that we can all be patriots when called upon to do so but many seem to take it to heart like many Christians
who praise God on Sunday but have to make a stop by the confessional on Saturday.

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So where have the heroes gone?

Heroes? We have plenty of them. Could be your neighbor that risks his life to pull you out of your burning home, or the one that chases down the perp that just mugged you, or the one that stops the carjacker, or the one that does CPR on the stranger he finds laying in the street while everyone else walks by.

The appropriate question should be, “Where have the Patriots gone?” The ones willing to risk everything for country, God, and family. The ones willing to preserve our articles of freedom that many made sacrifices to write in the first place. Lee Iacocca wrote a book called “Where have all the leaders gone?” Maybe somebody needs to write, “Where have all the patriots gone?”

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Done, Steve… tho I suspect you just corrected yourself by the later post…

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‘gererationally’ will the editors please change this to ‘generationally’…seemed i could not edit my post afterwards as it was ‘awaiting moderation’ and i have to go now….thanks Steve Rowland

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Gregory:
Thanks for your insight and your lengthy response. We are on the same page on a lot of points. I agree with you on many, maybe simply have a ‘generationally’ different perspective.

Is, say Bill Gates, a ‘hero’? Are those who established the internet (my apologies to Al Gore) heroes? I could go on, but my perspective of technology is that most advances have been in the name of capitalism and not that ‘denial of self for the benefit of all’, as corny as it sounds. Let’s see, i define a ‘hero’ as ‘a man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength; “RAF pilots were the heroes of the Battle of Britain” , etc. And I don’t mean the ‘hero’ so loosely given out today…sports ‘heroes’…rock ‘heroes’….puts a bad taste in my mouth. However, in general, i clearly see your point.

Maybe I am looking at the glass as half empty, but the dollar has to have some value for the amounts you mentioned to mean anything. What is was indicating is ‘sustainability’. Consider, the last decade and the economic failures that have put a massive load on the already unmanageable debt. These failures were ‘houses of cards’ from their inception and simply let those benefiting ride the wave as long as it continued. The trouble with riding a wave, however, is that it always breaks in the end. We base our entire economy on a volatile stock market subject to investor whim and a Congress whose sole objective in life is to feed itself.

Will this really be forgotten in 5, 10, 20 years? Possibly so. Like the Great depression, maybe it is simply a spike in history leading to peace, prosperity and the pursuit of happiness and decadence, until the next spike, or valley I might add. We will have to see, look at Britain, look at the USSR. We wake up one morning and the USSR is gone, vanished, as it it never existed. We simply have the total inability to see where we are on the time-line of history, and thus are destined to keep making the same mistakes over and over, all for love of money, until we run of money to throw at the problem.

You are right, they will never learn.

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Leah:
Thanks, Leah, a lot of truth there.
Why it has changed so drastically is due to the spoils to be had. The winners take their seats on the pinnacle of power in Washington and the losers go home.

Like it is said: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” well let’s add a new slant to that quote: “Money and power corrupt, and control over absolute money and power corrupt absolutely.” well….maybe its a given since you cannot have one without the other…oh, well…

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Wade:
Hey, don’t deny Craig his optimism. We need more of that!

It would be great if we could get the full might of that massive Christian Coalition that blew in the Republicans so many years ago, stunning the erstwhile Democratic congress. Reports of our demise are sadly premature. Will we have enough enthusiasm to make ourselves known again this election or will we stay home, allowing the Democrats to continue to rule the roost? They are out there, make no mistake, the problem is, the Republicans themselves taught them that Washington corrupts and where it took Democrats several decades to run up incomprehensible deficits, it took the Republicans only one decade to catch up. The Christian Coalition was silenced.

Words of wisdom. Such spirit has seen us through in the past and maybe it will continue to be our salvation if there will be any opportunity for the next generation.

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Craig:
As I said, I did not intend the post to be political, simply could not resist throwing that in at the end.
Sara Palin is a motivation to vote for McCain a fortiori, as I likely would not vote had say, Romney, been on the ticket. The hypocrisy of such a ticket would simply be too great.

Palin likely will be relegated to the shadows as usual Vice-Presidents, brought out only to break ties and should McCain become incapacitated, sic. but I agree with you, until this election Palin should be Everywhere. I would much rather look at her than Biden, or Obama….or McCain.

Thank you for your comments.

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