Memorial Day

One of the finer things the medium of television has ever produced is the Turner Pictures 1993 movie, Gettysburg. Based on the Michael Shaara book, The Killer Angels, it is a slightly fictionalized but extremely accurate depiction of the three-day battle July 1-3, 1863, that became the “ebb tide” of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. The climax of the movie is Pickett’s charge performed by over 3,000 Civil War re-enactors.

The first time I watched it I was so overwhelmed by the awe of the charge I almost cried. Looking across that field at the 3,000, I tried to imagine what the actual attack with five times that many soldiers coming must have looked like. And then the carnage; half of them, 7,500, dead or wounded when it was over.

There is a very tender scene in the movie on the evening of the second day. Confederate General Lewis Armistead, played by Richard Jordan, is at the headquarters of General James Longstreet, played by Tom Berenger. In the background a Rebel crooner is singing Kathleen Mavourneen, the mournful Irish tune about lovers saying good-bye, while the generals reminisce about their days in California before the war. Armistead remarks that they had sung that same song at dinner the night before he, Longstreet, and General Richard Garnett left to join the Confederate army.

Also at the dinner was Armistead’s best friend, Winfield Scott Hancock, who now commanded the Union II Corps on the opposite side of the field. Tears well in Armistead’s eyes as he wonders what fate had brought them to this hour. The next day at the height of the charge his brigade pierced the Union line briefly, and both he and Hancock were wounded.

The performance by Richard Jordan was touching, but it is even more moving if you know the history and the events that followed. For Richard Jordan it may have been his finest performance. It was also his last. He died of a brain tumor less than a year later before the movie was released. His character, “Lo” Armistead, was a tragic figure as well. Armistead had been married twice, but both wives died, one of fever and one of cholera, and two of his three children had also died. His wounds in the battle were only minor in one arm and one leg, neither requiring amputation and neither considered to have been life threatening. But two days later he suddenly died for unknown reasons at the age of 46. It has been suggested that he simply had no more will to live.

One of the sad tragedies of the Civil War was that it divided families and friends. Brothers fought against brothers, fathers against sons, and friends turned against each other. Some developed bitter, life-long hatreds that no peace or reconstruction could heal. It seemed to be, as William Seward called it, an “irrepressible conflict” fought so fanatically that more American fighting men lost their lives in that war than all other wars America has been involved in combined.

One thing the Civil War illustrates clearly is that when the American soldier has been called to duty, no matter what reason or where, no matter how daring or deadly, he has gone to war with energy and resolve, loving country more than even his own life.

From the freezing winters at Valley Forge to Yorktown, from Ft. McHenry to New Orleans, to Chapultepec in Mexico; to Bull Run, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, the river of death called Chickamauga, and a quiet church in the wilderness known as Shiloh; to San Juan Hill in Cuba and Manila Bay; the trenches in France and the break through at Belleau Wood; from Pearl Harbor to a thousand locations across the Pacific and throughout Europe, to the frozen Chosin Reservoir on the Korean peninsula, the steaming jungles of Southeast Asia, Hue and Khe Sanh, the Balkans and Africa; and today in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan, American servicemen and women have done their duty in the harshest conditions and loneliest places on earth. They have endured and risen victorious because of the great love they have for their country.

Another popular song during the Civil War was Tenting on the Old Campground. It speaks of lonely soldiers far from home, wishing for the war to end, of their wives’ prayerful vigils and of their comrades already gone. Not well known today, it is a poignant, reminisceful tune that gets to the heart of the serviceman’s feelings on distant battlefields.

We are tenting tonight on the old campground,
Thinking of days gone by,
Of the loved ones at home that gave us the hand,
And the tear that said, “Good-bye!”

Many are the hearts that are weary tonight,
Wishing for the war to cease;
Many are the hearts that are looking for the right
To see the dawn of peace.
Tenting tonight, tenting tonight,
Tenting on the old campground.

This Memorial Day as we celebrate with cookouts and family outings, watch the “Memorial Day Classic” Indy 500, or the NASCAR 600 mile race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, go to church, watch or play baseball, let us not forget our fighting men and women who are in harm’s way. They are the ones this holiday is about. They are serving to preserve for us the freedom to have our picnics and our celebrations. They are serving to preserve freedom for liberals who loathe them, and for a president who wants to cut their pay and make them buy their own medical insurance. They are far from home, often lonely, thinking of family and loved ones. When you pray this Memorial Day, don’t forget to remember our men and women in uniform and ask that they’ll be brought safely home, and that those who will give “the last full measure of devotion,” may be safely carried to an eternal home in peace.

God Bless the American serviceman.

America the Beautiful

America the Beautiful is one of our finer patriotic songs. With a majestic melody it describes every corner of the country, from mountains to prairies, and from sea to shining sea under the vast, spacious sky above. It describes the pilgrims and heroes who settled and built the land, and appeals to God for His grace and hand on our country at the close of every verse.

I first learned the song in the fourth grade. Today they don’t teach it in public schools anymore because the references to God might offend some atheist or Moslem, or be considered by someone to be establishing a religion. More’s the pity.

The Robert Shaw Chorale put out a patriotic album in the 60’s that included America the Beautiful, and I was listening to it on a CD and singing along in the car as I was going across town. All of a sudden the last line of the second verse jumped out at me.

Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!

This is what John Adams meant when he said, “We have created a government for a religious and moral people. It will work for none else.” We see more and more every day the wisdom in his comment. The more secular our nation becomes the higher crime rates we see, the more laws are needed to keep people accountable, and the fewer freedoms we have. This is not to say that America was ever a perfect utopia, but we were a vast majority Christian nation in the beginning, and when the emphasis was on Christianity and our Christian roots, we had less government control because we had less crime, and our streets and communities were safer because people understood the need and were willing to govern themselves.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the change in American culture after the Supreme Court rulings kicking God out of our public schools. Prior to the 1962 and 1963 rulings the worst problems in school were children chewing gum. Now it’s children bringing guns to school and murdering their classmates.

When people control themselves there is no crime and there is no need for excessive laws. True liberty is unrestricted as long as we abide by the existing laws, but this can only work in a true Christian community where people understand that righteous, moral living is the best way, where there is a deep, inner conviction that certain moral standards must be upheld.

This kind of conviction doesn’t come from godlessness. Neither does it come from tyrannical religious systems that serve the leadership rather than the followers. Neither can it be forced upon anyone by the government. It comes from within, from a heart that has a relationship with Jesus Christ.

When asked what the greatest commandment is Jesus responded in Matthew 22:37-39, that the first great commandment is to love God with all of your heart and soul and mind. The second great commandment, He said, is to love your neighbor as yourself.

The significance of these two commandments is this: if you love the true God and live by His standards set in the Bible, not only will your spiritual needs be met, but your social, relational needs will be met as well. The Bible tells us to obey the laws of the land. It tells us to treat our neighbors with respect. This is the recipe for peaceful, harmonious living.

Yet the best handbook on developing peaceful relationships is discarded and banned from our public schools because somebody like the atheist ACLU might be offended. The ACLU doesn’t care about peace or anything that is good for the country. All they care about is their godless agenda. The more godless the country gets, the higher the crime rates grow, and the more our lawmakers add backbreaking laws and regulations to everything we do, which ultimately steals our liberties. And that makes the ACLU happy.

The answer is to get back to our Christian roots. It is those Christian roots that teach us to confirm our souls in self-control, to voluntarily restrain our liberties within the law, and to love everyone around us. Nothing could make America more beautiful than that.

Precious in the Sight of the Lord

My cousin, Sharon, married Jim Smith and they spent 29 years in Ecuador as missionaries. They had two delightful children, Zac and Stacey. Stacey ran an orphanage and placement service all by herself in Ecuador for seven years. Zac married Mandy, and they had three children, Lizzy, Luke and Jake. Zac went to seminary and was working in a church in South Carolina when about a year ago he was diagnosed with cancer. Zac fought a valiant battle, but this afternoon at 3:05, EST, he passed away. He was 33.

I didn't know Zac well because we lived in different parts of the world. I do remember he was an energetic child with loving parents. He kept a blog called HELLO?RIGHTON! which I have followed on my blog list. He had a unique sense of humor and always posted very insightful thoughts and ideas. From all accounts by those who knew him better than I, he was a wonderful husband and father.

In February Zac made a video. It has been shown in churches all over the country and has itself been a comfort to many. It is on Youtube under the heading, "Zac's Story." If you haven't seen it yet, please take a moment to view it. It's less than five minutes long, but you will be blessed listening to his testimony.

In the past year and a half, thirteen people that I have known, including my father and grandmother, have gone through the valley of the shadow. One, Jeremy Janz, had been in a semi-comatose state for twelve years. It was a relief to see him go. Another, Jimmy Strickland, had a heart attack while in the pulpit preaching, doing what he had loved to do for the last 60 years. The youngest was our close friend, Gully, who had suffered so severely from cancer that he started hallucinating, but when the end came he raised his arms to the sky and cried out, "Praise the Lord."

Richard Smith was listening to two of his sons reading the Doxology; "Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye heavenly host, Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen." As his sons read the Amen, Richard breathed his last.

All thirteen of these friends and relatives were Christians, and all passed peacefully into the arms of the Lord. We haven't heard the details of Zac's passing, but he was so weak I imagine he probably went quietly in his sleep.

Hearts are broken and the family is in sorrow. One cannot help but wonder why. Zac was born two months premature and struggled in an incubator. When my grandfather, his great grandfather, came to see him, Sharon was overwhelmed and began to cry. Gramps took her for a walk and said not to worry. "God has plans for that boy," he said. Indeed He did, and those plans included a ministry through his illness that touched thousands, and then an early home going, but now Zac and Gramps are reunited in heaven. As hard as it is for the family here, there is rejoicing going on across the river.

Perhaps that is why God gave us the tender message in Psalm 116:15, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." I can think of nothing special to say that would be a comfort to the family, but I don't think there are any better words than the passage just quoted. To know God, and to know that God knows you and has a plan for you is the greatest comfort there is. To know that because of His great love for you, He will carry you safely over to the other side is a great assurance. That doesn't make it easy, but it gives the Christian a peace that others will never know until they put their faith in the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

Today we say farewell to Zac Smith in the firm hope that in the providence of a loving God one day we will meet again. Many of you have been praying for Zac. Let me thank you. Let me also ask you to continue to pray for his family.

"God is still God, and God is still good" - Zac Smith.

Supreme Court

During the impeachment trial of Bill Clinton in 1998, Congresswoman Maxine Waters defended her president by complaining that our troops were in harm's way and it would be demoralizing to them to have their Commander-in-Chief convicted and removed from office. As with most Democrats, she was typically out of touch with the military. Clinton had been a draft dodger who cavorted with communists in Czechoslovakia during the Vietnam War. His removal would have been a huge morale booster to the military. Unfortunately as I watched the House vote, not one Republican in their 90 second speeches before the vote made any kind of comment concerning morale, and I wondered then if the Republicans were also losing touch, not only with the military, but with the entire population. I think the second term of W at least proved that they were.

Now we have the most liberal president in our history, an obvious socialist in spite of his scoffing at the suggestion during his campaign for president, who has accumulated more debt in one year than Bush did in one term, and more than any other presidential administration, who is usurping powers through the appointment of "czars" which have no constitutional recognition, much less authority, and is trying to ram his agenda down America's throat by by-passing Congress when he can't get something passed legitimately. He is considering making Cap and Trade, for example, an Environmental Protection Agency policy, thus giving the EPA the power to enforce it without it ever being voted on in Congress. We have never had a president more out of touch with America than the one we have now. Obama is a hopeful dictator trying to overthrow the government by decree, and what he can't get done through Congress and czars, he'll try to get done through Supreme Court appointments.

This week he nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. Kagan is a Harvard law professor with no judicial experience. She is pro-homosexual rights, opposed to the Defense of Marriage Act, hostile toward faith-based organizations, anti-military, having been responsible for the removal of the ROTC from Harvard's campus and is opposed to the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, and she believes the Constitution is defective. She believes free speech can be controlled by the government and is in favor of the so-called Fairness Doctrine. She agrees with Obama that the Constitution is a "living" document, or in other words it changes and adapts to "public policy," which is whatever the president or the justices decide is right according to their own philosophies, not according to the Constitution.

With her anti-military background Kagan's appointment would be an insult to our fighting men in harm's way. So where is Maxine Waters pontificating about the morale of our troops now? Kagan is a dangerous appointment because she stands against everything that our country was founded on.

John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, said about our leaders, "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty - as well as the privilege and interest - of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians as their rulers." Kagan, with her anti-Christian position on nearly every issue, not to mention her anti-constitutional positions, is less qualified to be a Supreme Court justice than was Harriet Miers, and should be denied.

Mt. Rushmore

When I was ten years old we passed through the Black Hills on vacation and stopped at Mt. Rushmore. I was happy to see it because there was a popular joke going around at the time about a guy who climbed to the top of the mountain and fell off. He grabbed on to George Washington's nose and as he hung there he shouted to his friends, "Look, I'm a booger."

A few years later I saw the Alfred Hitchcock movie, North by Northwest, on TV. The visitor center looked just as I remembered it and I wondered for years if there was really a house and an airstrip on top of the monument. I loved that house, by the way, even if it was a 1950's design, and if I had the money I'd try to buy it no matter where it's located. And speaking of acting, watch Cary Grant's eyes. He could say more with the expression on his face than most people could say with a thousand words. Oh, isn't there a saying about that? But I digress.

Last summer we took a family vacation to Mt. Rushmore. The visitor center has grown considerably from what I remembered 44 years earlier, and I was amazed at how many people travel to that out-of-the-way place every year just to see it. It was worth the trip to see the beautiful Black Hills and stand in awe under those huge busts of four of our greatest presidents carved out of a mountain side.

George Washington has the prominent place and rightly so. "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." His character and integrity established a dignity to the office and his leadership helped a struggling Republic take its place among the community of nations and earned him the well-deserved title, "Father of Our Country." Simply put, without George Washington there would be no America.

Twentieth century revisionists have smirched and slandered his character, belittling his importance, robbing from generations of children a true hero, someone genuinely worth patterning their lives after. Richard Brookheiser, in a 1996 biography called "Founding Father," which I recommend to you, examined the works of earlier historians and the revisionists, and came to the conclusion that George Washington was the man we originally thought him to be. He was a vestryman in his parish church, quoted Scripture often, and lived by the highest moral principles. He forbad swearing and drunkenness in the Continental Army, and encouraged the troops to attend services. He often referred to Providence, a common reference to God at the time. Fully a third of his first Inaugural Address discussed the "providential agency" involved in founding the country. The cherry tree story may have been a myth, but the character it honored was every bit as true and honest in his life as was the little boy with the axe in the story. Brookheiser writes, "When he lived, Washington had the ability to give strength to debaters and to dying men. His life still has the power to inspire anyone who studies it."

Beside Washington to the right and slightly behind is the bust of Thomas Jefferson. It is a worthy position indicative of the role Jefferson played in the making of America. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence, and while he was in France serving as an ambassador during the Constitutional Convention, it was his influence through letters that led to the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. His term as president was a period of great expansion and discovery. In 1803 the United States doubled its size with the Louisiana Purchase from France and Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on their epic journey to explore the new territory. What Jefferson most wanted to be remembered for, however, was that he was the founder of the University of Virginia. He was an educator as well as a statesman, and one of the great forces behind the founding of our great nation.

Next to Jefferson and a little deeper into the recess of the cliffside is Teddy Roosevelt. Separated from the Founders by a hundred years, his bullish attitude reinvigorated a nation reeling from the assassination of its president in 1901. He was a war hero having led the Rough Riders up San Juan Hill in Cuba, and his motto, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," resonated with the people. Under his leadership America grew to become a major world power. He built the Panama Canal, an achievement that revolutionized trade and travel by sea, and built up the US Navy, sending thirteen state-of-the-art battleships (known as the Great White Fleet) on a world-wide good will tour in 1907. He was a man's man, an outdoorsman who loved to hunt, including lions in Africa after his presidency, and who proved his toughness by surviving an assassin's bullet later in life. He was an exciting character, never dull, a man who earned America great respect on the world stage, the man of the hour to lead the nation into the twentieth century.

Separated slightly to the right and looking back across the other three faces is the one many esteem as our greatest, or second greatest president next to Washington, Abraham Lincoln. The slight division in the rock face of the cliff seems poetically appropriate since he served as president during America's division in the Civil War. Lincoln gets a bad break from history. There can be no general consensus as to his accomplishments. Southerners still hate him and Northerners still love him. He's accused of overstepping his constitutional bounds, criticized for freeing the slaves as a political expediency rather than a conviction, and his character is often tarnished by those still fighting the Civil War. He was certainly an enigma. Lincoln grew up in the wilderness and never attended church, yet he knew the Bible well, quoted it often, and was known to be a man of great prayer. He was as meticulously honest as Washington, one time walking miles to return a borrowed nickel. His contemporaries thought he was unintelligent, General McClellan even called him a gorilla, but he led his administration with wisdom and skill, and it was his unbending will that held the country together through its deadliest war.

Lincoln's bust on Mt. Rushmore was uncompleted, the architect having died before the work was done. That also seems appropriate as Lincoln's life was cut short by an assassin before he could see the completion of the reconstruction of the nation he hoped for at his second inaugural. Lincoln's legacy is best described in his second Inaugural Address. "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." These are good words for today.

With all this in mind, when we get back to the States, I think I want to go visit Mt. Rushmore again.

Arizona's Border

Is there any better proof as to why Arizona needed to pass its new Illegal Alien law than the events that have happened since it passed? Illegal aliens marched on the capitol, flew American flags upside down beneath Mexican flags, attacked police with stones and bottles, and created general mayhem. Illegal aliens came from California and other places to join in. An hispanic Arizona senator from Yuma called for a boycott of his own state. And last Friday an armed illegal alien drug smuggler shot a deputy sheriff with an AK-47 assault rifle. The search for the shooter by Arizona police netted seventeen illegal aliens.

The president called the Arizona law misguided, but the only thing misguided here is the president. The Constitution obligates the president to make sure our borders are secure. The border with Mexico is not. It hasn't been secure for decades and the government's absolute failure to enforce our own laws to keep our own sovereign soil safe from invasion has caused the foreign invaders to grow more and more belligerent coming into our country.

In 2006 the problem had become so severe that grassroots efforts pressured the Republican controlled Congress to finally do something about it. A 700 mile long double security fence was approved with such overwhelming public support that President Bush had to sign it into law. Bush had been just as derelict on the border as Clinton before him and Obama after him, but support for the fence was so great he couldn't refuse to sign the bill. Unfortunately his failing popularity due to the unending war and out of control debts led to the Republican slaughter in the 2006 elections and the Democrat controlled Congress has refused since then to fund the border fence.

The Democrats have the support of Mexican president, Calderone, who verbally chastised Arizona for its new law. Funny, isn't it, that Mexico's illegal alien laws are much more stringent than America's own laws, and you don't find Calderone inviting illegal drug smuggling killers to cross over the border from the US to terrorize his people. You don't find him inviting illegal American aliens to come over and take jobs away from the Mexican people. Calderone said essentially that Arizona's law will damage relations between our countries. I say, "Let it!" It's none of his business what we do for our own security.

What this amounts to is an attempt by Mexico to reclaim the southwestern United States by draining its resources dry and sending billions of dollars back to Mexico to help its economy. It's not a military invasion, but it's an invasion of American soil just the same. Saddest of all is that Mexico's ally in this invasion is the leftist Democrat Party.

Let's get something straight. The United States of America is a sovereign nation with a government of the people, by the people, and for the people of the United States. Nobody else has rights here. Terrorists don't have a right to be Mirandized. Illegal aliens don't have a right to our welfare, public schools, social security, jobs or anything else. The only right they have is to be deported. The sooner that is done and the border fence is completed the safer America will be.

To neglect the border and leave it open for thugs, drug smugglers and killers, and to renege on duties of office lined out in the Constitution is treasonous. If the president and the leftists in Congress are so dense that they can't figure this out, they need to be voted out in the November elections this year and in 2012.