Willing to give it all

When someone joins the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines they are in effect, signing a blank check made payable to the United States Federal Government that basically says the check is for any amount up to and including their life. I want you to think about all the service men and women that were drafted and or volunteered to serve their country and never came home. Their check included the cost of their life.

By way of example, there were 320,518 men and women in World War I and 1,076245 in World War II and 211,454 in Vietnam that never got the chance to come home. Most were so young, and they never got the chance to have families, live in peace and grow old in America. They put it all on the line so that you and I could live in a free country today. When you see those numbers, it may not register what those numbers means, therefore here is another number. There are 35,000+/- cities and towns across America. Using the World War II death toll, it would mean that in my hometown of McDonough GA there was an average of 31 funerals of young men that left for war and did not come home alive. Using the three towns closest to McDonough (15 miles apart) there were 100+/- funerals in our area just from World War II. That is 100 young men and women that went to school, church, went on dates and played on ball teams that were killed in action and were laid to rest in our home town.

There are many people today that do not respect the American flag or the national anthem and have no regard and no thankfulness for what these people did to save our way of life. So, when you see people disrespecting our military, our history and our country, let us be careful to not identify them as heroes. The heroes are the ones that died on foreign soil and gave up their chance at life, so you and I could have ours. So, the next time you see the American flag or hear the national anthem, stop, listen, reflect on history and be thankful. KT

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