Like so many of you, I have taken a few days off to be with my family over the days leading up to Independence Day. We have had quite a blast as all of my children, their spouses, and their children all joined my wife and me at my sister’s lake house down in Alabama.
Now add her, her husband, her sons, their spouses, and their children to the mix, and voila! You now have a lake house with 32 people present! I say house; but the truth is that it was more like property. At bedtime, we had people stretched out in bedrooms, living rooms, dens, porches, and even a camper outside in the driveway.
But while it was a little crowded at times, we managed to get by each and every night until the sun came up. Thereupon, we spread out in a dozen places, from the dock to the water to the floats to the wake boat to the pontoon boat to the water skis to the tubes to the Jet Ski… Well, you get the point. If it happens on the lake in the summer time, we have pretty much partaken.
In fact, about the only reason we left the lake in the daylight hours at all was to indulge in all manner of culinary delights. Hot dogs, hamburgers, smoked pork, barbecue, taco salad, low country boil, buffalo chicken dip, guacamole spinach dip, pizza, chicken and dumplings, and even one night with what one comedian famously termed “broke food”, consisting of fried SPAM and macaroni & cheese!
Of course, no gourmet spread, however delicious, is complete without after-dinner entertainment. And so, we undertook such pleasantries as Jenga, Spades, Mexican Train, Eight Ball, and the working of puzzles, to name but a few. We even streamed a Hollywood Blockbuster or two along the way. All in all, it was a pretty good time!
But as the week progressed, I was increasingly reminded that all that we were enjoying came at quite a price. As we cruised up and down the lake and saw the multitude of American Flags and similar patriotic items on display, I could not help but remember that all the blessings we were enjoying were bought with a price by others who preceded us.
This was brought home to me even further when, on the way home, my wife and I stopped by the cemetery where so many of my forbears are interned. As is our custom, we proceeded to clean the graves of all of my parents and grandparents. When I came to the grave of my great uncle, Andrew Clyde Jackson, I was particularly distressed.
The fast-growing centipede grass which permeates the cemetery had overtaken the marker at the base of his grave, all but obliterating his designation as a World War Two Soldier in the United States Army. Knowing, as I do, the rest of the story – that he fought in the infamous Battle of the Bulge itself – I was aghast at my discovery. Frantically, I began tearing away at the shoots of grass. I did not stop until I had completely cleared the marker of this obstruction.
Why? Because I knew that he was one of millions of individuals who laid it all on the line in order that future generations of Americans like my family and me might forever be free, and also that we might celebrate that fact with much enjoyment! As long as it is within my power, his memory and what all he did on our behalf will not be erased!
As you prepare to celebrate Independence Day and the freedom you enjoy as an American, I leave you with a verse of Scripture and a poem.
The verse of Scripture is from the Gospel of John, chapter 15, verse 13, in which Jesus tells us that one’s willingness to sacrifice himself on behalf of others is the single greatest expression of love that there is.
The poem is one composed by retired Coast Guard officer Kelly Strong when he was a senior at Homestead High School in Homestead, Florida, serving as a Junior ROTC cadet. It was written as a tribute to his father, a career marine who served two tours in Vietnam, and is titled “Freedom Isn’t Free”.
I watched the flag pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze;
A young Marine saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform,
So young, so tall, so proud;
With hair cut square and eyes alert,
He’d stand out in any crowd.
I thought . . . how many men like him,
Had fallen through the years?
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers’ tears?
How many pilots’ planes shot down,
How many died at sea,
How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves,
No, Freedom is not Free.
I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still;
I listened to the bugler play,
And felt a sudden chill;
I wondered just how many times,
That Taps had meant "Amen",
When a flag had draped a coffin,
Of a brother or a friend;
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands,
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard,
At the bottom of the sea,
Of unmarked graves in Arlington,
No. Freedom is not Free!
POEM SOURCE:
https://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=384.
SCRIPTURE SOURCE:
https://biblehub.com/john/15-13.htm.
Now add her, her husband, her sons, their spouses, and their children to the mix, and voila! You now have a lake house with 32 people present! I say house; but the truth is that it was more like property. At bedtime, we had people stretched out in bedrooms, living rooms, dens, porches, and even a camper outside in the driveway.
But while it was a little crowded at times, we managed to get by each and every night until the sun came up. Thereupon, we spread out in a dozen places, from the dock to the water to the floats to the wake boat to the pontoon boat to the water skis to the tubes to the Jet Ski… Well, you get the point. If it happens on the lake in the summer time, we have pretty much partaken.
In fact, about the only reason we left the lake in the daylight hours at all was to indulge in all manner of culinary delights. Hot dogs, hamburgers, smoked pork, barbecue, taco salad, low country boil, buffalo chicken dip, guacamole spinach dip, pizza, chicken and dumplings, and even one night with what one comedian famously termed “broke food”, consisting of fried SPAM and macaroni & cheese!
Of course, no gourmet spread, however delicious, is complete without after-dinner entertainment. And so, we undertook such pleasantries as Jenga, Spades, Mexican Train, Eight Ball, and the working of puzzles, to name but a few. We even streamed a Hollywood Blockbuster or two along the way. All in all, it was a pretty good time!
But as the week progressed, I was increasingly reminded that all that we were enjoying came at quite a price. As we cruised up and down the lake and saw the multitude of American Flags and similar patriotic items on display, I could not help but remember that all the blessings we were enjoying were bought with a price by others who preceded us.
This was brought home to me even further when, on the way home, my wife and I stopped by the cemetery where so many of my forbears are interned. As is our custom, we proceeded to clean the graves of all of my parents and grandparents. When I came to the grave of my great uncle, Andrew Clyde Jackson, I was particularly distressed.
The fast-growing centipede grass which permeates the cemetery had overtaken the marker at the base of his grave, all but obliterating his designation as a World War Two Soldier in the United States Army. Knowing, as I do, the rest of the story – that he fought in the infamous Battle of the Bulge itself – I was aghast at my discovery. Frantically, I began tearing away at the shoots of grass. I did not stop until I had completely cleared the marker of this obstruction.
Why? Because I knew that he was one of millions of individuals who laid it all on the line in order that future generations of Americans like my family and me might forever be free, and also that we might celebrate that fact with much enjoyment! As long as it is within my power, his memory and what all he did on our behalf will not be erased!
As you prepare to celebrate Independence Day and the freedom you enjoy as an American, I leave you with a verse of Scripture and a poem.
The verse of Scripture is from the Gospel of John, chapter 15, verse 13, in which Jesus tells us that one’s willingness to sacrifice himself on behalf of others is the single greatest expression of love that there is.
The poem is one composed by retired Coast Guard officer Kelly Strong when he was a senior at Homestead High School in Homestead, Florida, serving as a Junior ROTC cadet. It was written as a tribute to his father, a career marine who served two tours in Vietnam, and is titled “Freedom Isn’t Free”.
I watched the flag pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze;
A young Marine saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform,
So young, so tall, so proud;
With hair cut square and eyes alert,
He’d stand out in any crowd.
I thought . . . how many men like him,
Had fallen through the years?
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers’ tears?
How many pilots’ planes shot down,
How many died at sea,
How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves,
No, Freedom is not Free.
I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still;
I listened to the bugler play,
And felt a sudden chill;
I wondered just how many times,
That Taps had meant "Amen",
When a flag had draped a coffin,
Of a brother or a friend;
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands,
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard,
At the bottom of the sea,
Of unmarked graves in Arlington,
No. Freedom is not Free!
POEM SOURCE:
https://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=384.
SCRIPTURE SOURCE:
https://biblehub.com/john/15-13.htm.