The Patriot Post® · 'To support and defend ... So help me God'
“I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth more than all the means….” –John Adams
Monday is Memorial Day, set aside to honor our fallen Patriots – generations of American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coastguardsmen – who served their country with honor from 1776 to this day. It is a day that many of our Patriot readers, and every member of The Federalist Patriot staff, observe in solemn reverence.
There will be thousands of respectful commemorations across the nation, but the media outlets will be focused on Memorial Day “sales” to commemorate the commercial exploitation that attends every national holiday. Indeed, while divisions of America’s Armed Forces are standing in harm’s way today against a formidable Jihadi adversary, many of their countrymen will be too preoccupied with festivity to pause and recognize their sacrifice and that of those who have gone before.
At sunrise on Saturday, in advance of Memorial Day, this Boy Scout leader will join his troop and pack at Chattanooga’s National Cemetery for an official ceremony and prayer memorializing fallen veterans, by branch of service, interred in the last year. Our Scouts will then fan out across the grassy slopes of this hallowed ground and place small flags at 35,000 headstones. (See http://patriotpost.us/reference/boy-scouts-memorial-day/)
It is a remarkable experience for all in attendance, though it could be the last. The Boy Scouts have yet to be kicked out of Chattanooga’s National Cemetery, but they have been exiled from many other public places.
Why?
Because all Scouts are bound by the following oath: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country….” It is an oath which, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, makes the BSA a “religious organization,” and, thus, in keeping with the ACLU’s adulterated version of our Constitution’s First Amendment, disqualifies the BSA from any public forum. Unfortunately, the ACLU and their patriarchs in Congress have planted enough judicial activists in U.S. Circuit Courts across the nation to impose, by judicial fiat, their God-forsaking agenda. (For a thorough Constitutional debunking of the ACLU’s “wall of separation” claim, read “Public Prayer? Where’s the outrage!” at http://patriotpost.us/alexander/2005/05/06/the-wall-of-separation-myth/)
In 1999, the ACLU sued the Department of Defense for sponsoring some 400 Boy Scout programs, including the national Boy Scouts Jamboree in Virginia. American Legion National Commander Thomas Cadmus protested last year, in a letter to SecDef Don Rumsfeld: “The idea that sponsorship of Scouting by American military units is ‘unconstitutional’ goes beyond the absurd, even well past the point of stupidity.”
Absurd and stupid, indeed – so who is funding all these ACLU suits? American taxpayers – that’s you and me.
Many of the ACLU’s “attorney-fee awards” are paid for under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S. Code Sec. 1988, legislation intended to provide compensation to legitimate victims of civil-rights violations. The ACLU is exploiting this law using phony plaintiffs suffering de minimis claims. Additionally, they are scalping state and local taxpayers. After the ACLU got the Boy Scouts removed from Balboa Park in San Diego, they collected a cool $940,000 from the city in “compensation.” The Portland Public School system recently paid the ACLU $108,000 after an atheist objected to Boy Scout recruitment on school property after school hours.
Such complaints are creeping across the nation and showing up on “ACLU-friendly” Circuit Court dockets – all because the Boy Scouts refuse to remove the word “God” from their oath. Will the United States military be cowed as well? Or will it summon the resolve to engage this mortal enemy of our national heritage?
Earlier this year, the Department of Defense settled with the ACLU, agreeing not to sponsor any of the scouting activities monetarily, while it will still allow scouting events at military installations – a military retreat but not complete withdrawal. However, every Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Marine and Coastguardsman we honor this Memorial Day, and all those in service now, are bound by their oath “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic…. So help me God.”
So help me God.
The ACLU’s Adam Schwartz noticed, protesting, “If our Constitution’s promise of religious liberty is to be a reality, the government should not be administering religious oaths or discriminating based on religious beliefs.” But, as noted in the essay referenced above, there is no “wall of separation” between religion and the government; there is only a prohibition on the Congress from establishing a national religion. However, the Circuit Courts are chock-full-o the ACLU’s judicial activists, those who, in the words of the august Senator Sam Ervin, “interpret the Constitution to mean what it would have said if they, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.”
The courts are stacked with such despots, as Thomas Jefferson called them, because neither they, nor the members of the Senate who seat them (you know who you are), abide by their oaths to defend our Constitution – “So help me God” – the same Creator to whom members of our Armed Forces appeal. The difference, of course, is that our uniformed Patriots have defended, and continue to defend, that oath with their lives, while liberal senators and judges defend it with lip service over cappuccinos and tartlets.
If you are able, please join your fellow countrymen this weekend at your nearest National Cemetery, and honor those uniformed Patriots who stood and fell by their oath in defense of our Constitution. Remember to pause at 3:00pm local time on Memorial Day, and offer remembrance and prayer for these great Patriots. “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died,” said Gen. George S. Patton. “Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”
Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776
“Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of American Liberty, honoring their oath “to support and defend” our Constitution. Pray for our Veterans, First Responders, and their families.
Please consider a designated gift to support the National Medal of Honor Sustaining Fund through Patriot Foundation Trust, or make a check payable to “NMoH Sustaining Fund” and mail it to:
Patriot Foundation Trust
PO Box 407
Chattanooga, TN 37401-0407
The The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring Their Sacrifice Foundation and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. “Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one’s life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
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