Posted on 05/26/2007 3:48:53 PM PDT by Lady J USA 1981
Memorial Day Is Never Honored By War Haters: It Is The Day They Dishonor Our Dead Soldiers
Edwin A. Sumcad
May 26, 2007
If you are in a self-denial of the trauma of protests against the war in Iraq because the pain is unbearable, just picture in your mind a group of angry anti-war demonstrators picketing in the cemetery who oppose the giving of the highest honor to our dead soldiers about to enter their final resting place.
Just think why they hate to bury our soldiers with honor for dying in Iraq: They died in a war that those protesters did not choose. To them our soldiers deserve a hero’s burial only if they died in a war they themselves prescribed or have died only in a war they wanted America to fight.
Worse, protesting ignorant and politically used moms like Cindy Sheehan whose son Casey died while in active duty in Iraq, do not believe that our soldiers in Iraq are fighting for their country. They have this politically scripted Sheehan paranoia that President Bush sent their sons to Iraq not to fight a war for America, but to be “murdered by terrorists to save Israel”, whatever that -- in the light of me, and please don’t ask me -- means.
Those “weirdoes” have no consideration at all how this nation feels when our soldiers come home in boxes draped with our national flag, which tells us in silence the story of why they died in battle so that we may live.
Here’s the ugly catch to it: The pain of losing our love ones in combat when they fight for this country is already traumatic, but it is even made more painful when those war dissenters on the fringe desecrate the sacred ground of their burial. And the shock of our life is when instead of honoring our dead soldiers, those misguided protesting souls that mill around the cemetery abuse the supreme sacrifice of our dead heroes that only those who enjoy the fire in Hell understand.
Expressing an excruciating empathy, I tried to capture the agony of the American public caused by the conscienceless I have just described, and communicated it to all and sundry in the form of editorial report: You Can Protest the War Until You Turn Blue But Never Slur a Dead Soldier”. It was published in American Chronicle on August 30, 2005, and in Google read worldwide. The copyright original full text is at
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=2163
The following is the message written in that editorial insight that had been picked up by so many websites and/or reprinted and editorialized by political watchers in the Internet. The message on war protest was directed to those whose passion of dissent went overboard:
“Whatever is in your mind when you protest a war is your own business. You may claim your freedom to protest, and cry out your loudest complaint to high heavens against this war in Iraq until your lungs burst out, or until hell freezes over, whichever comes first, in which case I wish you luck. Just don’t smear a dead soldier who fought and died for this country even as you flaunt your right to protest, for if you do, this nation will step down on you as an imp more treacherous than a rotten scoundrel.
“Definitely, that’s neither good for you nor it is to all of us. If you shame a dead soldier, obviously you become a national problem, which is everybody’s business. It is time to tell you that the swinging elbow of your freedom to protest is landing on someone else’s nose.”
The message was aimed at focusing national attention to protests against burying our dead soldiers from Iraq with honor just because radical anti-war protesters believed that the war in Iraq was not the kind of war that suits their liking.
What followed after that editorial message splashed all over the Web may be coincidental, that I grant if one asks if subsequent congressional action was a response to that call for public attention. For, after that Congress passed The Respect For America’s Fallen Heroes Act on May 29, 2006.
The law “… [P]rohibits protests within 300 feet of the entrance of a cemetery from 60 minutes before to 60 minutes after a funeral. Penalties for violating the Act are up to $100,000 in fines and up to one year imprisonment.” [1]
This prohibition is specifically directed against the likes of Cindy Sheehan and her look-a-likes in the political world of protest-for-hire, who demean our dead soldiers.
The law was also a response of Congress to organized picketing of military funerals led by Pastor Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr. Phelps is a notorious leader and founder of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. He is a disbarred lawyer, and the WBC he leads is known to be a hate group. [2]
This spiritual guru has a problem. His hate speeches exude condemnation of conservatives, especially Bill O’Reilly, and his bitterness over homosexuals and gay rights is biblical, notably delirious in warning others of God’s wrath. He has been referred to as agent provocateur drawing Islamic terrorists into hating Christian as a planned backlash.
Typical of the enemy within, Phelps and his followers challenged the constitutionality of The Respect For America’s Fallen Heroes Act even as the nation is honoring our dead soldiers on Memorial Day.
But as usual, emotional protesters of their kind who seldom rely on brain power when staging a constitutional challenge will bite the dust. The U.S. Supreme Court made the law airtight enough to withstand any wayward challenges.
Demonstrations that “disturb” funerals or memorial service or ceremony, are prohibited. Case laws prohibit among others, “… [A]ny individual willfully making or assisting in the making of any noise or diversion that disturbs or tends to disturb the peace or good order of the funeral or memorial service or ceremony." [The U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Grayned v. City of Rockford.] [3]
This constitutional guideline was just recently re-enforced by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Griffin v. Secretary of Veterans Affairs. The ban on graveyard picketing was constitutional. "… [A]ny service, ceremony, or demonstration, except as authorized by the head of the facility or designee, is prohibited…” [Refer to Note (3)]
Today is Memorial Day. We commemorate the nation’s sorrow as we take the memory of our soldiers to their honored resting place. [4] We see the Honor Guard doing his solemn duty to keep watch over the Tomb of the Unknowns “every hour of the day, on the coldest nights, in the hardest rain…”
That is meant to be so that undisturbed, we have a moment of consecration to reflect our gratitude and respect to those who dedicated their lives to love of country whose names are not even known. For today in all cemeteries across the country and abroad where fallen heroes were laid to rest, “America acknowledges a debt that is beyond our power to repay.” [Refer to Note (4)]
To our young soldiers who died in battle, life was short. But the nation was touched when President Bush said in observance of Memorial Day that “ … [T]he completeness of a life is not measured in length only. It is measured in the deeds and commitments that give a life its purpose.”
We know our losses in war. We feel the sadness of war in Iraq. But we also know that on this day America remembers and honors those we have loved, and lost … young lives we lost that we may find the just and better world we seek for America and the rest of the world.
Under The Respect For America’s Fallen Heroes Act, all we ask is “60 minutes before and 60 minutes after a funeral” to leave us alone in peace before we lay down the bodies of our fallen heroes in their final resting place with full honor they more than deserved.
But even this, angry picketing war haters would rather spit on our heroes’ grave than give us a chance to honor their immortality in a moment of silence.
In Memorial Day, we need to light a candle and seize that flitting moment of silence to look into our souls to see if those who spit on the grave of our fallen heroes deserved the legacy left by our soldiers who died in Iraq.
Those people described in the article make me sick to my soul. God bless our troops and their families! May we never forget our fallen heroes and their sacrifice.
Agreed. I thought this a well written article.
God Bless our Vets, Past, Present & Future.
These kinds of people have no real lives. They are filled with such ugliness inside themselves. It must be terrible to be them and live their lives in such a worthless and unhappy manner. Better them than me though.
Happy Memorial Day everyone and thanks to all of those who have gone before us protecting our freedoms. God bless our military and all they stand for. THEY are the ones who should be getting the attention but...they do their jobs and dont’ need the attention like so many pathetic others.
PING!
Memorial Day was originally Decoration Day and was a day set aside to honor the Confederates who died in the Civil War. The practice spread to the north and after WWI it included all war dead.
To defend America by giving your life is the ultimate insult to the left who believes America is always in the wrong and, as Cindy Sheehan and others say, deserved to die.
My new name for them is GATHERING OF VULTURES, they live off the dead they claim to honor.
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
Yeh!!!....GOV
We'll continue the fight against the haters of this country and our military. To my dying day I'll fight against them.
There will always be people that will do such things, but as long there are people who remember those who died for our freedom, these soldiers’ deeds, their sacrifice, will never be forgotten. That is all that matters.
Check out this post:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1840189/posts
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