The last full measure of devotion

On this Memorial Day 2006, I wish to express my deep and everlasting gratitude to the hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women who have given their lives in order to ensure that our country remains the beacon of freedom in a world that is rife with tyranny and oppression.

I have found that there are few better places to pay homage to some of these servicemen than the American cemetery above Omaha Beach in Normandy, France. Over 60 years after the D-Day Invasion, this cemetery is kept lovingly immaculate, as it should be. I cannot express to you how real and sobering it is to walk among these crosses and occasional stars of David, as I have, knowing that many of these forever-young men died on the beach below or in the hedgerows a few miles away, and that they did it all for me - so that I could grow up in a world in which we would not live under the fascist tyranny of the German Nazis or the Japanese.

Today, we have a new war, and a new generation of soldiers fighting it. The outcome of this war is just as important as World War II. Instead of the tyranny and oppression of Nazism and Japanese Fascism, we are fighting against the encroachment of militant Islamo-fascism. Make no mistake, if given the chance, millions of Muslims in this world would love to bring back the caliphate and make me and my family either convert to Islam, pay the jizya (tax that non-Muslims pay), or die. If you think I am exaggerating or being overly dramatic, I only have to point your attention to a native Christian Europe that is dying, and a fecund and determined Arab/Muslim population that is taking its place. Once again, our brave young men and women have answered the call and currently fight and die to protect our nation.

So again, God bless the soldiers who have died for this country, along with the many more soldiers who have given their limbs, eyesight, and youthful strength in the service of their country. They may not have died on the battlefield, but they certainly left a part of them there.

This isn't an edition of God's Country, but my photo certainly records a place that qualifies.

Good Day to You, Sir, and God Bless America