GreekChat.com Forums - 4 th of July, 2005.

Yes, it gets posted every year, but these words are so beautiful they should be read every year on the fourth of july...THIS is what the holiday is about - everything else is just icing on the cake.

Quote:

Declaration of Independence

[Adopted in Congress 4 July 1776]

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure
these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of
government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people
to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed
for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown
that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than
to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is
their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide
new guards for their future security. -- Such has been the patient
sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains
them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present
King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all
having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these
states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and
necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate
and pressing importance, unless suspended in their
operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so
suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation
of large districts of people, unless those people would
relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a
right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their
public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into
compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for
opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of
the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to
cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers,
incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at
large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime
exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and
convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these
states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for
naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to
encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions
of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing
his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the
tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their
salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither
swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their
substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies
without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and
superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our
laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for
any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants
of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by
jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended
offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a
neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary
government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it
at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the
same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable
laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our
governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring
themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all
cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of
his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned
our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign
mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation
and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty
and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages,
and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the
high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the
executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall
themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the
merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is
undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and
conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the
most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which
may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an
unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to
their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties
of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably
interrupt our connections and correspondence. We must, therefore, acquiesce
in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold
the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in
General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for
the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of
the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these
united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states;
that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that
all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and
ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they
have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish
commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may
of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance
on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Happy Independence Day! One thing I always remember is that freedom is not free!

My great-uncles served in WWII in both Europe and the Pacific. My grandfather attempted to enlist for WWII, but the Army wouldn't let him as they wanted him to stay in his civilian job as an engineer for a factory which produced rations. For his dedication, his name appears at the WWII Memorial in Washington DC. A couple of my uncles are Vietnam veterans. My father and a cousin were also in the Army.

But guess what? There are LOADS of other families who sent their loved ones out to war. I got mine back, others didn't. They gave the biggest sacrifice.

We also have MANY members of GC who are/were in the military or are spouses of those who serve.

To everyone who served, I say "Thank You."

I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th! Remember, if you drink, please do not drive.

.....Kelly :)

----- Original Message -----
A Tale of Six Boys"

Each year I am hired to go to Washington, DC, with the eighth grade class from Clinton, WI. where I grew up, to videotape their trip. I greatly enjoy visiting our nation's capitol, and each year I take some special memories back with me. This fall's trip was especially memorable.

On the last night of our trip, we stopped at the Iwo Jima memorial. This memorial is the largest bronze statue in the world and depicts one of the most famous photographs in history -- that of the six brave soldiers raising the American Flag at the top of a rocky hill on the island of Iwo Jima, Japan, during WW II.

Over one hundred students and chaperones piled off the buses and headed towards the memorial. I noticed a solitary figure at the base of the statue, and as I got closer he asked, "Where are you guys from?"

I told him that we were from Wisconsin. "Hey, I'm a cheese head, too! Come gather around, Cheese heads, and I will tell you a story."

(James Bradley just happened to be in Washington, DC, to speak at the memorial the following day. He was there that night to say good night to his dad, who has since passed away. He was just about to leave when he saw the buses pull up. I videotaped him as he spoke to us, and received his permission to share what he said from my videotape. It is one thing to tour the incredible monuments filled with history in Washington, D.C., but it is quite another to get the kind of insight we received that night.)

When all had gathered around, he reverently began to speak. (Here are his words that night.)

"My name is James Bradley and I'm from Antigo, Wisconsin. My dad is on that statue, and I just wrote a book called "Flags of Our Fathers" which is #5 on the New York Times Best Seller list right now. It is the story of the six boys you see behind me.

"Six boys raised the flag. The first guy putting the pole in the ground is Harlon Block. Harlon was an all-state football player. He enlisted in the Marine Corps with all the senior members of his football team. They were off to play another type of game. A game called "War." But it didn't turn out to be a game.

Harlon, at the age of 21, died with his intestines in his hands. I don't say that to gross you out, I say that because there are generals who stand in front of this statue and talk about the glory of war. You guys need to know that most of the boys in Iwo Jima were 17, 18, and 19 years old.

(He pointed to the statue) "You see this next guy? That's Rene Gagnon from New Hampshire. If you took Rene's helmet off at the moment this photo was taken and looked in the webbing of that helmet, you would find a photograph... a photograph of his girlfriend. Rene put that in there for protection because he was scared. He was 18 years old. Boys won the battle of Iwo Jima. Boys. Not old men.

"The next guy here, the third guy in this tableau, was Sergeant Mike Strank. Mike is my hero. He was the hero of all these guys. They called him the "old man" because he was so old. He was already 24. When Mike would motivate his boys in training camp, he didn't say, 'Let's go kill some Japanese'or 'Let's die for our country.' He knew he was talking to little boys. Instead he would say, 'You do what I say, and I'll get you home to your mothers.'

"The last guy on this side of the statue is Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona. Ira Hayes walked off Iwo Jima. He went into the White House with my dad. President Truman told him, 'You're a hero.' He told reporters, 'How can I feel like a hero when 250 of my buddies hit the island with me and only 27 of us walked off alive?' So you take your class at school, 250 of you spending a year together having fun, doing everything together. Then all 250 of you hit the beach, but only 27 of your classmates walk off alive. That was Ira Hayes. He had images of horror in his mind. Ira Hayes
died dead drunk, face down at the age of 32 .. ten years after this picture was taken.

"The next guy, going around the statue, is Franklin Sousleyfrom Hilltop, Kentucky. A fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. His best friend, who is now 70, told me, 'Yeah, you know, we took two cows up on the porch of the Hilltop General Store. Then we strung wire across the stairs so the cows couldn't get down. Then we fed them Epsom salts. Those cows crapped all night. Yes, he was a fun-lovin' hillbilly boy. Franklin died on Iwo Jima at the age of 19. When the telegram came to tell his mother that he was dead, it went to the Hilltop General Store. A barefoot boy ran that telegram up to his
mother's farm. The neighbors could hear her scream all night and into the morning. The neighbors lived a quarter of a mile away.

"The next guy, as we continue to go around the statue, is my dad, John Bradley from Antigo, Wisconsin, where I was raised. My dad lived until 1994, but he would never give interviews. When Walter Cronkite's producers, or the New York Times would call, we were trained as little kids to say, 'No, I'm sorry, sir, my dad's not here. He is in Canada fishing. No, there is no phone there, sir. No, we don't know when he is coming back.' My dad never fished or even went to Canada. Usually, he was sitting there right at the table eating his Campbell's soup. But we had to tell the press that he
was out fishing. He didn't want to talk to the press.

"You see, my dad didn't see himself as a hero. Everyone thinks these guys are heroes, 'cause they are in a photo and on a monument. My dad knew better. He was a medic. John Bradley from Wisconsin was a caregiver. In Iwo Jima he probably held over 200 boys as they died. And when boys died in Iwo Jima, they writhed and screamed in pain.

"When I was a little boy, my third grade teacher told me that my dad was a hero. When I went home and told my dad that, he looked at me and said, 'I want you always to remember that the heroes of Iwo Jima are the guys who did not come back. Did NOT come back.'

"So that's the story about six nice young boys. Three died on Iwo Jima, and three came back as national heroes. Overall, 7,000 boys died on Iwo Jima in the worst battle in the history of the Marine Corps. My voice is giving out, so I will end here. Thank you for your time."

Suddenly, the monument wasn't just a big old piece of metal with a flag sticking out of the top. It came to life before our eyes with the heartfelt words of a son who did indeed have a father who was a hero. Maybe not a hero for the reasons most people would believe, but a hero nonetheless.

We need to remember that God created this vast and glorious world for us to live in, freely, but also at great sacrifice. Let us never forget from the Revolutionary War to the current War on Terrorism and all the wars in-between that sacrifice was made for our freedom. Remember to pray praises for this great country of ours and also pray for those still in murderous unrest around the world. STOP and thank God for being alive and being free at someone else's sacrifice.

God Bless.

REMINDER: Everyday that you can wake up free, it's going to be a great day.