Memorial Day

"The nation that forgets its defenders, will itself be forgotten." Calvin Coolidge

Hope ya'll are enjoying your Memorial Day Celebrations with family and friends. The girls and I are relaxing, BBQing with the neighbors, and swimming at the Rudderville Pool. Duane is still at Ft. Benning for his second school and is spending his weekend studying. :(

For obvious reasons, Memorial Day is a holiday close to our hearts. Please take some time today, in between the BBQing and suntan lotion applications, to remember the men and women whose sacrifice has paid for the freedoms, small and large, that we enjoy each day. I know that our country is not perfect, our leaders not without fault. There are numerous things to complain about and be frustrated with in America today, but we are still the only country founded purely upon the principles and ideals of freedom. It is a struggle for us to maintain these ideals and sometimes, we fail. But in the end, the very freedom to strive towards the ideals upon which we were founded is owed to the men and women who have died under our flag. Don't taint their memory with complacency but rather purpose to be actively thankful for each small blessing of freedom and strive to maintain the ideals that our nation was founded upon all those years ago. God Bless America!

"There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream." ~Archibald MacLeish

"We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights." ~Felix Frankfurter

"My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! " ~Thomas Jefferson

"Our great modern Republic. May those who seek the blessings of its institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose." ~Ulysses S. Grant

"Patriotism... is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime." ~Adlai Stevenson