Posted on 04/26/2004 5:35:49 AM PDT by OESY
Army Ranger Pat Tillman died Thursday when his patrol was ambushed near the Afghan-Pakistani border. He was 27. Specialist Tillman never talked about it publicly, but all the world knew that he had given up a million-dollar career in the NFL for a chance to serve his country.
Why did he fight? For an answer, we turn to President Reagan's June 6, 1984, speech in front of the U.S. Ranger Monument at Normandy, commemorating the Rangers' charge up Pointe du Hoc. Mr. Reagan's words apply equally to Pat Tillman, and all the other American men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the war on terror:
"Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.
"The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.
"You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
In either case, he died doing what he loved and I guess few of us can be so fortunate as to make such an exit.
There's no virus. The server was down all night. Disk drive crashed. John just finally got it back up a little while ago after replacing the drive. He'll eventually get all of the search functions working again.
The Wall Street Journal sent us a copyright complaint last week. They are now excerpt and link only.
The WSJ has been in the heavy left tank for at least 25 years. Vide their Washington editor, for example, the Klintonista toady and lickspittle, Al something. With the departure of [the late] Robert Bartley, there is very little high quality content left in the rag that cannot be found elswhere on the net, usually for free. Sadly, Gigot just doesn't have the clout to temper the corrosive influence of the CS of J cucarachas who now seem to infest the rag. I had the WSJ on-line subscription for a year and soon realized that to a large extent, they were always back in the pack on serious news coverage. Sad to say, the rag is just not worth the time anymore. And the mere fact that they sued FR establishes their ideological coloration and lack of balance beyond any doubt. Certainly they haven't fallen as far and fast as the NY Slimes - but give them time, give them time.
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