Mark DeLap
Bladen Journal Editor
FROM THE EDITOR
Although America is living in tumultuous times, it has technically been blessed of late with peace. An unsteady and “walking on eggshells” kind of peace, but certainly a momentary calm.
The virus that has attacked us from foreign soil – a disease that our own people were aware of and perhaps orchestrated had enlisted us in a battle that this generation has never experienced. We would do good to remember those who died at the hands of those insane with power, control and money who thought nothing of using the American public as Guinea pigs.
It also bred a society that is now valuing illegal immigrants and lawbreakers over those in our own country. A faction of sick people who won’t applaud the young cancer victim because he is revealed at an inaugural address or cry even one tear for a mother who’s daughter is brutally murdered.
The enemy is still out there protesting for the extreme, lifting the flags of murderers and openly attacking government workers who are doing their jobs. This Memorial Day’s remembrance should go so much deeper.
The young people who have been born into the new millennium have heard the stories, read the books, watched the documentaries of America at war, but one would wonder where the heart of the young Americans are today, and if, perhaps, patriotism given way to political correctness and fear.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Day ceremonies are a testimony of a country that will not forget its own. The day itself also hopefully reinforces to our young people that the holiday is not celebrating the coming of summer or family camping trips to one of our National Parks.
It is a day for education. Set aside to teach our children that we will never forget nor will we grow so apathetic that we don’t fully realize that the bodies in some of those graves didn’t have the luxury to die in their beds in Bladen County or in a nursing facility surrounded by family and friends.
These are actual remains of those who took their last breath far away from their home and country. Some coffins filled are filled with bone fragments and body parts because portions of exploded tissue and brain matter became planted in the soil of a hostile and foreign country.
This is not a legend or a tale. This is the graphic nature of Americans at war.
The Veterans will come forth at the cemeteries this coming week, all over North Carolina. Many now aged and slowed by life, still carrying the shrapnel of memories seared into their minds as they witnessed firsthand that period of America’s infamy.
According to military records, there were approximately 30K North Carolina soldiers killed in the Revolutionary War, 40K killed in the Civil War, 2,375 killed in WWI, 6,458 in WWII, 788 in Korea, 1,613 in Vietnam and 17 in Desert Storm. Add up the Middle East Conflicts, and the “COVID war” and you have a lot of people from this state to remember this year.
Looking around, you had to wonder if the family members all knew how fortunate they were that they still had a veteran alive to tell the stories.
“With this abundance of freedom, there comes a ton of responsibility,” a young student who opted not to be recognized, said. She not only gets this, but proclaims it and should garner the attention of everyone who reads this.
“We have to take care of our country in order to preserve everything that it has to offer,” she continued. “Our freedom was purchased with blood and sacrifice.”
The very fact that she spoke of preservation on a day that was intended to honor and preserve spoke volumes as to this generation’s understanding of the day itself and honoring the price that was paid for our young country to continue.
A profound statement from a young member of this generation that will one day rule and reign in America.
And THAT makes me sleep a little better as snow is even now, falling upon my rooftop.