- George Washington
There are a lot of children in my family, and they are cherished and protected; the idea of something happening to one of them makes me have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. My oldest nephew is fifteen and taller than I am (that's not saying much), and this week as I think on our past wars, I realize that many of the men who went overseas to fight were only a few years older than he is now. And this makes me think of what their families must have gone through, watching their boys march off to war, not knowing when or if they would return.
This is one reason that I want the conflict of our time- with radical Islam- dealt with decisively and with finality. I don't want my nephews and nieces to be faced with the consequences of allowing it to fester and spread. I don't want what is happening in parts of Europe to happen here, and have our children forced to face that sort of threat here at home, where they should be safe.
One of my sisters is a substitute teacher, and she was at a Remembrance Day assembly at one school a few years ago and told me afterwards disgustedly that a student had sung John Lennon's Imagine at it. Some day I will write a post on just how much I loathe that creepy, evil song by that hypocritical jerk Lennon, but not right now. I'll simply point out that its message is a complete betrayal of everything our veterans fought for. And this message, that nothing is worth fighting for- not our country, our way of life, our family- is not one that I want my nephews and nieces to absorb. I want them to know what our values are, why they are important, and why they should be willing to fight for them.