Posted on 05/26/2002 7:54:58 AM PDT by redrock
...and it probably is enough.
Here we have no hired mercenaries...paid to fight for us while we sit at home.
Here we do not fight for conquest.....
Here we do not fight for gold and riches or loot of any kind.....
Here we fight FOR Freedom....and for our families...
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It's kinda simple really....
During combat...you have to rely on the man next to you.....in such a way that is difficult to explain.
Your life is partly in his control...and his life in yours.
There...in those moments of momentous stress and fear....you come face to face with certain realities.
That all the great and wonderful words spoken....mean nothing.
That all the greedy politicians that sit at home.....mean nothing.
But what does matter, and the reality hits you harder than any bullet or shell could, is that in the end..all that we have.....is each other.
...and it is probably enough.
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...and I'm not talking just of the courage of those actually under fire.
I'm talking about the utter courage of those keeping the planes flying.
Working long past the point of exhaustion..they keep working...making sure that no pilot's life will end because of mechanical failure.
Nurses...( and NEVER say anything bad to me about Army nurses...they are the BEST)...who put on a stern face...demanding that soldiers, boys really, get better. They never show weakness...to those they are trying to put back together.......and then in private, unseen but by a few, break down and just weep at the horror they have seen.
Because..in the end...all that we have..is each other.
...and it probably is enough.
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America has a different view of what the military should be.
It is a citizen military...
Composed of our sons....
our fathers.....
our brothers...
.....and tommorrow is the day that we set aside to remember those members of our American Family.
To Remember the sacrifice's they have made ...
To Remember what they have done...
It's simple really.
To say...."Thank You."
Because, in the end,....we are all fighting for each other.
..and it is enough.
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"Some of us volunteered to fight for Union. Some came in mainly because we were bored at home and this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to.Many of us came.....because it was the right thing to do. All of us have seen men die. Most of us never saw a black man back home.We think on that too.But freedom.....is not just a word.
This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you'll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we're here for something new. I don't.....this hasn't happened much in the history of the world. We're an army going out to set other men free.
This is free ground. All the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here you can be something. Here's a place to build a home. It isn't the land--there's always more land. It's the idea that we all have value, you and me, we're worth something more than the dirt. I never saw dirt I'd die for, but I'm not asking you to come join us and fight for dirt. What we're all fighting for, in the end, is each other."
Col. Joshua Chamberlain on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg...to the 2nd Maine
redrock
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