True meaning of Memorial Day

Memorial Day is fast approaching.

But there's a problem. Most people have come to look upon Memorial Day as a kickoff for summer, a time for picnics and barbecues. Memorial Day is much, much more than that.

We need to remember and we need to offer our respect for those who paid the price for our freedoms; we need to hold in sacred reverence the memory of those who died serving their country. We need to ensure that they are never forgotten.

Over the years, the original meaning and sprit of Memorial Day has faded from the public consciousness.

If it is considered a holiday, why? I consider it to be a national day of mourning. That is how we observe the day in our home. Because of what that day represents, the rest of the days of the year are our holidays.

Memorial Day is a day to stop and pay, with sincere conviction, our respects for those who died protecting and preserving the freedoms we enjoy, for they are owed more than we can ever repay.

On May 5, 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal organization of Union Army veterans, established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30, a date believed to be chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.

Unfortunately, when Congress made Memorial day part of a mandatory three-day weekend through the National Holiday act of 1971, it made it all that much easier for us to be distracted from the spirit and meaning of the day.

It wasn't until after World War I that the day was expanded to honor those who have died in all American wars. In 1971 Memorial Day was declared a national holiday by an act of Congress, though it is still often called Decoration Day. It was then that it was also assigned to the last Monday in May, similar to other federal holidays relocated to Mondays.

These veterans lived and died, but not in vain, for they paused with us on their way to immortality--and our world is a better place for their efforts.

Let us never forget the sacrifices of those men and women--Our Patriots--who have paid the ultimate price to defend their country's freedom.

May they rest in Peace.

The perpetual light shines upon them.


Richard Kendzierski is the chairman of the Bedford Joint Veterans Council. (Bedford Sun)

Recapturing America's Glory!

"It is said that there has never been a Democracy in the history of the world that has flourished for more than three centuries. If America slides into mediocrity, it will not be attributed to a shortage of money or an economical recession; rather, it will be because of the ever-widening gap in two important values in our society--"God & Integrity".

With God comes much love and respect--two virtues that are fast disappearing on the American societal landscape of the current day. Former President Ronald Reagan once said "We are One Nation Under God. The day we fail to realize this, we will be a Nation Gone Under." Some in the radically liberal left of our government, in particular, are taking our Christian. democratic principles and rights away from us at an alarming rate and in the process, are robbing America of the very spirit that gave birth to our great nation and the reason for which we have been so bountifully blessed since our founding.

Americans who truly love, appreciate, and understand how difficult it has been to obtain our cherished freedoms are our Patriots. America's Patriots know the heavy cost of our freedoms and as such, realize how easily it would be to lose these freedoms if we are not careful, vigilant, or elect to follow a path off course from those morally true principles and values that have never failed to define us as a morally elite Democracy and leader of the Free World.

American Patriots everywhere must lead all of America in standing up in protest and reclamation of our religious freedoms before they are gone. Before America is gone--a mere 300-year blip and another failed Democracy in the world's historical chronicles.

Take a close look at what is truly important. Our history has been characterized by many hills and valleys. But we have always persevered and rose above it all, because when we have taken the time to look up, we see the face of God, and it was he, himself, who pulled us up out of those dark valleys, so we could be warmed by the sun of a new fervent day.

Never be ashamed of your Christian roots! Never doubt our nation as long as God watches over us and is an active part of our lives. Don't let the politicians, the greedy, the jealous, and those who hate what we stand for, to take our inherent rights away from us and ultimately our nation.

Open your eyes, America, before it is too late! Stand up against big, corrupt government; hold our leaders accountable to the people many of them have forgotten; elect patriots who value "character" over change; and never, ever, let anyone tell you to hide your Christian-selves.

It's quite proper to say "Merry Christmas","God Bless America", and "In God We Trust!"--and mean it!

Let the New Era of Freedom Ring!

And always, Love & Pray for Our Nation.

Patriotic Quotes of The Day

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
~Abraham Lincoln

America is a tune. It must be sung together.
~Gerald Stanley Lee, Crowds

We can't all be Washingtons, but we can all be patriots.
~Charles F. Browne

What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from."
~Marilyn vos Savant, in Parade

[P]atriotism... is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.
~Adlai Stevenson

A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
~George William Curtis

When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect.
~Adlai Stevenson

Love your country. Your country is the land where your parents sleep, where is spoken that language in which the chosen of your heart, blushing, whispered the first word of love; it is the home that God has given you that by striving to perfect yourselves therein you may prepare to ascend to him.
~Giuseppe Mazzini

There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream.
~Archibald MacLeish

National honor is national property of the highest value.
~James Monroe, first inaugural address, 4 March 1817

How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy.
~Paul Sweeney

May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!
~Daniel Webster

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.
~Elmer Davis

The stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things that matter for a nation; the great peaks of honour we had forgotten - duty and patriotism, clad in glittering white; the great pinnacle of sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to heaven.
~David Lloyd George

Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Poet," Essays, Second Series, 1844

If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace.
~Hamilton Fish

And I'm proud to be an American,where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died,who gave that right to me.
~Lee Greenwood

The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American.
~Thomas Jefferson

America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality.
~Adlai Stevenson

From every mountain sideLet Freedom ring.
~Samuel F. Smith, "America

"Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea.
~John Gunther

America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos. ~Max Lerner, Actions and Passions, 1949

Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
~John Dickinson

The skies of happiness shine upon these United States of America.
~Mirakel Reves

If you are ashamed to stand by your colors, you had better seek another flag.
~Author Unknown

Where liberty dwells, there is my country.
~Benjamin Franklin

Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!
~Daniel Webster

If you take advantage of everything America has to offer, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. ~Geraldine Ferraro

Oh, it's home again and home again, America for me!I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling seaTo the blessed land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.
~Henry Van Dyke

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.
~Woodrow Wilson

This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope. So it was in the beginning. So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith. ~Lyndon B. Johnson

We sleep peacefully at night, cradled by the big strong hands of America.
~Val Saintsbury

America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love my freedom. I love my America.
~Jessi Lane Adams

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.
~Theodore Roosevelt

Of all the supervised conditions for life offered man, those under USA's constitution have proved the best. Wherefore, be sure when you start modifying, corrupting or abrogating it.
~Martin H. Fischer

He loves his country best who strives to make it best.
~Robert G. Ingersoll

It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism.
~J. Horace McFarland"

Our country, right or wrong." When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.
~Carl Schurz

Off with your hat, as the flag goes by! And let the heart have its say; you're man enough for a tear in your eye that you will not wipe away.
~Henry Cuyler Bunner

It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the men whose people have been here many generations.
~Henry Cabot Lodge

The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men.
~Franklin D. Roosevelt

Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name.
~Woodrow Wilson

Star-spangled happiness and banner waves of pride.
~Cherishe Archer

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!
~Thomas Jefferson


America, for me, has been the pursuit and catching of happiness.
~Aurora Raigne


I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.
~Simone de Beauvoir

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. ~William J. Clinton

My favorite thing about the United States? Lots of Americans, one America.
~Val Saintsbury

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.
~James Bryce

Our great modern Republic. May those who seek the blessings of its institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose.
~Ulysses S. Grant

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.
~Louis D. Brandeis

Men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own.
~Seneca

Territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life.
~James Garfield

Ev'ry heart beats true'neath the Red, White and Blue,
~George M. Cohan

We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us..... The old "manifest destiny" idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can - and that without cant, without the assumption of self-righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations.
~Francis John McConnell

I believe in America because we have great dreams - and because we have the opportunity to make those dreams come true.
~Wendell L. Wilkie

To me, being an American means feeling safe.
~Currielene Armstrong

We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls.
~Robert J. McCracken

It is sweet to serve one's country by deeds, and it is not absurd to serve her by words. ~Sallust

We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit.
~Hubert H. Humphrey

May I never wake up from the American dream.
~Carrie Latet


A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works.
~Bill Vaughan

I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot.
~Gary Hart

My patriotic heart beats red, white, and blue.
~Author Unknown

Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may.
~Mark Twain


All we have of freedom, all we use or know - This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
~Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue, 1899

What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it.
~Hubert H. Humphrey

You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world.
~Herman Melville

Our hearts where they rocked our cradle, Our love where we spent our toil,And our faith, and our hope, and our honor,We pledge to our native soil. God gave all men all earth to love, But since our hearts are small,Ordained for each one spot should prove Beloved over all.
~Rudyard Kipling

He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick

We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights.
~Felix Frankfurter

Patriotism is easy to understand in America - it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country. ~Calvin Coolidge

We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution.
~John F. Kennedy

The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation.
~Woodrow Wilson

Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.
~Sinclair Lewis

Lincoln Ranked Best President in C-SPAN Poll

INTRO COMMENT: Keep in mind, history always gets it right! Harry Truman had a meager 22% approval rating when he left office as one of our most unpopular Presidents in history! George Bush will go down in history as the President who had the courage to stand up to radical islam on behalf of the free world! Eat your heart out, Lenore Bennett!! George Washington is my #1 President.

"Just days after the nation honored the 200th anniversary of his birth, 65 historians ranked Abraham Lincoln as the nation's best president.

Former President George W. Bush, who left office last month, was ranked 36th out of the 42 men who had been chief executive by the end of 2008, according to a survey conducted by the cable channel C-SPAN.

Mr. Bush scored worst in international relations, where he was ranked 41st, and in economic management, where he was ranked 40th. His highest ranking, 24th, was in the category of pursuing equal justice for all. He was ranked 25th in crisis leadership and vision and agenda setting.

In contrast, Lincoln was ranked in the top three in each of the 10 categories evaluated by participants.

C-SPAN's only other ranking of presidents was in 2000. Former President Bill Clinton jumped six spots from No. 21 on that assessment to 15. Other recent presidents improved as well: Ronald Reagan advanced from No. 11 to 10, and George H.W. Bush rose from No. 20 to 18. But Jimmy Carter fell from No. 22 to 25.

This movement illustrates that presidential reputations are influenced by present-day concerns, said survey adviser and participant Edna Medford.

"Today's concerns shape our views of the past, be it in the area of foreign policy, managing the economy or human rights," Miss Medford said.

After Lincoln, the academics rated George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman as the best leaders overall. The same five received top spots in the 2000 survey, although Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt swapped spots this year.
Rated worst overall were James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, William Henry Harrison and Warren G. Harding.

The survey was conducted in December and January. Participants ranked each president on a scale of one, or "not effective," to 10, "very effective," on a list of 10 leadership qualities, including relations with Congress, public persuasion and moral authority."