“Fight for Victory Tour” My Report & Pics From Niles,Il.

I want to say when I first saw the post scouting for locations for this event, I thought in my haste, that it was a local Chicago Freeper chapter that was meeting to support our troops.
I was heartened for the locale was my suggestion but more importantly after the debacle in Congress and what they do to our wonderful men and women in the military, I was proud to partake in honoring them.

I chose Niles,Il. because it befitted what Move Across America had requested and the fact it is a Memorial to our fallen veterans. It is called Veteran's fountain.
Niles is a patriotic town also. The waterfall at night has red, white blue colors.

In honor of United States military veterans ... The Niles Veterans Waterfall, located in Niles, Illinois.

I hope to have more pictures soon of the memorial plaque and shrine.
I became increasingly excited the more I learned about what all of us were waiting for, the “Fight for Victory Tour” caravan.
I met people who came from Wisconsin because our locale was closest for them.
I met two Freeper's, I'm certain there were more.
The speeches given were inspiring and tearful. The singing also made me cry.
Many cars hooted and tooted being we were at a very busy intersection and it was rush hour.

I was proud to celebrate and honor our troops. Grateful that my daughter saw this beautiful vigil.

It was September 11 and we wanted to do something special to honor our troops and those who died as victims or terrorism. It would have been great to do something right in Chicago but we could not arrange a permit for any good locations.

We did however find a spot in Niles, a suburb of northern Chicago that was a great place to hold a candlelight vigil. It was just an intersection across from the Niles police department building with a lot of room on the street corner and a big fountain behind us.

There was a great little crowd there and we started pulling out our shirts, Diana’s CDs, the victory blanket, and we started putting little tea candles into the paper cups we brought. Several people from the crowd wanted to help out with that too, so we had a few people putting candles into cups and setting that up while the rest of us put together the normal set up.

Diana Nagy got on the microphone and everyone in the crowd got their candles ready, Robert and I were lighting them like crazy, then Diana sang the spangled banner and everyone stood in silence for a moment to remember the fallen. It was a somber moment and then Deborah and Debbie got up to tell their sons stories. This time when Deborah Johns and Debbie Lee told their stories though, they took out anything that had a political undertone to it.

Deborah Johns told us all about when her son first started talking about wanting to join the Marine Corps, how worried she was about his decision and how he basically sprung it on her by surprise and took her to the recruiting office and put her on the spot to sign even before he had turned 18. Deborah also talked about how Will had always played baseball and that he actually got a scholarship to Arizona State to play baseball for them and then at the last minute he decided he preferred going into the USMC.

I can’t help but think about Michael Moore and his ridiculous Fahrenheit 9/11 movie and the segment where he goes to film the Army recruiters out in front of Wal-Mart. The point is to show how dishonest recruiters prey on disaffected or low income youths to join the military. Buzz talks about this concept that the public has in his book War Crimes. In it, he talks about how the media and movies and elements on the left try hard to characterize the military as a socially skewed organization that only sends the son’s of the poor and minorities to war. Buzz rebukes these myths in War Crimes, here are just a couple supporting facts and figures but you can read about it extensively in his book; 51 percent of Air Force officers have at least a Master’s Degree, three out of every five people who join the military come from families in the top 20% earnings bracket, and 99% of people in the military have at least a high school diploma versus only 80% of the general public of the same age group.

So when Debbie Lee talks about her son Marc, when Deborah Johns talks about Will and when the hundreds of blue star and gold star moms and families that I have met on this trip across the country talk about their sons and daughters who have joined, we mustn’t allow ourselves to think of that liberal stereotype of the disconnected kid who is looking for a group to belong to and needs the signing bonus because his family has no money. These boys and girls who enlist in our armed services could have done anything with their lives, anything they wanted, because they are achievers. But they all felt a call to service, to be a part and support something much larger and greater than themselves.

Welcome to the official homepage for Robert "Buzz" Patterson, two-time New York Times best selling author, radio show host, popular speaker and retired United States Air Force pilot.

Since his military retirement in 2001, Buzz has emerged as a vitally important voice for the American military and national security.

As the author of New York Times best sellers, Dereliction of Duty: How Bill Clinton Compromised America's National Security, and his recent release, Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize Our Security, Buzz has established himself as a respected, frequently requested voice for national security and military affairs.

He is the national security columnist for the respected conservative weekly Front Page Magazine and can be seen and heard on talk shows and news events across the country. He hosts "The Buzz Cut," a weekly radio show for the RighTalk Radio Network streaming live and in replays at www.rightalk.com. His new book War Crimes: The Left's Campaign to Eliminate the Military and Lose the War on Terror debuts with Crown Forum in September of 2006.

As a career Air Force pilot seeing combat duty in far flung locales such as Grenada, Bosnia, the Persian Gulf, Somalia and Rwanda, and serving as military aide at the right hand of President Bill Clinton, he has impeccable military bona fides. As the Air Force Aide to Clinton, he carried the "Nuclear Football." He is the Chief Operating Officer for the Center for the Study of Popular Culture in Los Angeles, California.

* Gold Star Mother Debbie Lee - Debbie’s son, Marc Alan Lee, was the first Navy Seal killed in combat operations in Iraq. She has met with President Bush on a number of occasions and pledged her commitment to speak out in support of our troops and their missions in the war on terror. Ms. Lee will be traveling with the caravan for its full length, speaking at the pro-troop rallies across the nation

Debbie Lee has been a leading spokesperson for the missions of U.S. troops fighting in the war on terrorism and for Move America Forward.

Her son, Marc Alan Lee, was the first Navy Seal to lose his life in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Marc, 28, was killed August 2, 2006 in a fierce firefight while on patrol against insurgents in Ramadi, Iraq.

U.S. Navy officers told Debbie Lee that her son died after single-handedly holding off enemy fighters as his team rescued a wounded soldier from a rooftop. During the two-hour battle, Navy officials informed her that Marc Lee fired 100 rounds of ammunition against insurgents before he was killed.

As the Portland Oregonian noted, “A Navy SEAL's everyday life would reduce most people to sobbing wrecks: extremes of heat and cold, sleep deprivation, the constant specter of danger. It is an existence of late-night phone calls and missed birthdays, while standing watch over the troubled waters of this world so that others may sleep peacefully.”

Debbie Lee has toured the nation, speaking at pro-troop rallies, and helping to organize shipments of care packages to our troops serving overseas.

She met with President Bush and pledged her commitment to use her voice to make a difference in America’s to support for our troops. She presented him the Seal Team 3 hat, the Seal Trident and the picture of Marc and his platoon.

She appeared onstage at the 2007 Country Music Awards where Tim McGraw presented to her and other Gold Star Parents his new song, “I’m Already Home” which honors those in the U.S. military who gave their lives in service to this nation.

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* Blue Star Mother Deborah Johns - Deborah is the proud mother of U.S. Marine Sgt. William Johns who has already served THREE tours of duty in Iraq and is at the ready for a 4th deployment there. Deborah has become one of the leading pro-troop activists in the nation, and this marks her fourth cross-country pro-troop caravan she has been on. Ms. Johns will be traveling with the caravan for its full length, speaking at the pro-troop rallies across the nation.

When anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan emerged as the darling of the news media in August 2005, there were few voices challenging the statements being made by Ms. Sheehan. One woman, Marine Mom Deborah Johns, stepped up and led the national effort to present the pro-troop alternative to Cindy Sheehan.

Johns served as Move America Forward’s spokesperson for the “You Don’t Speak for Me, Cindy” tour, which crossed the nation and ended in Crawford, Texas with a pro-troop rally that attracted thousands of supporters.

Deborah Johns has been interviewed more than 500 times by the leading news organizations in the United States and abroad, where she has articulated the importance of the missions of U.S. and Coalition troops serving in the war on terror.

Deborah’s son, William, has already served three tours of duty in Iraq as a United States Marine, and he stands ready to redeploy to Iraq when needed.

Patriotism runs deep in the Johns’ family. Another of Deborah’s sons, Adam, teamed up with Move America Forward for Operation Fuzzy Wuzzy, which collected and sent over 5,000 teddy bears and stuffed animals to the children of Beslan, Russia who survived that awful terrorist attack.

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