NEVER FORGET

Next month, America will honor the anniversary of September 11, 2001, when terrorists killed nearly 3,000 of our fellow citizens. In the days after 9/11, Americans stood together as one, setting aside partisan fervor and recognized a common enemy in Islamist terrorist groups, particularly al-Qaeda. National security was rightfully restored as our nation’s highest priority.

As the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, it’s important to honor the victims and the heroes of that day by not only remaining on guard, but promising we will never quit this important fight until the threat no longer exists.

Leading up to September 11, The Heritage Foundation will be hosting a series of events and releasing critical research and analysis designed to educate America on the remaining threat and offer the right policy course to keep us safe.

We will also be asking Americans to join us in a display of unity once again. On Sunday, September 11, 2011, we hope that every neighborhood across the nation is flooded with American flags celebrating the lives of those we lost in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania and the heroism we witnessed, while also reminding each other that the fight to prevent another attack is not over.

In Honor Of Flag Day - History 101: Old Glory

1777: The First Official U.S. Flag

This 13-Star Flag became the Official Flag of the United States on June 14th, 1777. The June 14th date was later designated by President Woodrow Wilson as Flag Day. In this flag's design, both the stars and stripes represent the thirteen original colonies, which had been created under the Declaration of Independence just one year prior.

The Blaze

Is It Left, Or Is It Right

So let it be written..

In A Nutshell...

A day of Faith, Hope and God. Restoring Honor Rally...

~click~

It's about the content of Character. Not the color of your skin.

h/t to Rightscoop

Lt. Col. Allen West: Character

"I'm the liberals worst nightmare."

"America is about empowering the individual, not enslaving the individual. And that's what we have to get away from. Each and everytime there is a tax that is created, that takes a little bit more of your liberty away."
Stunning.
h/t to The Right Scoop

.... 2012 ......

Sarah Palin: "It’s War, not a Crime Spree."

President Obama’s meeting with his top national security advisers does nothing to change the fact that his fundamental approach to terrorism is fatally flawed. We are at war with radical Islamic extremists and treating this threat as a law enforcement issue is dangerous for our nation’s security. That’s what happened in the 1990s and we saw the result on September 11, 2001. This is a war on terror not an “overseas contingency operation.” Acts of terrorism are just that, not “man caused disasters.” The system did not work. Abdulmutallab was a child of privilege radicalized and trained by organized jihadists, not an “isolated extremist” who traveled to a land of “crushing poverty.” He is an enemy of the United States, not just another criminal defendant.

More...

Never say Never....

America Rising: We're Taking Our Country Back

“Man can be chained, but he cannot be domesticated.”-- Robert A. Heinlein


@ Hillbuzz

The Challenge Of Freedom

A must read by Doctor Zero.

Writing in the U.K. Times Online, Michael Binyon asks if Iran is approaching the tipping point of revolution. It’s a revolution observers in the West have anticipated for a long time. Ever since the massive protests against the stolen elections of early 2009, when a murderer’s bullet slammed into Neda Soltan’s chest, we’ve wondered if the Iranian people would stand up and overthrow their sinister regime. Neda’s name became a prayer in the West, and many of us thought it would soon become a battle cry ringing through the stale air of Tehran.

New demonstrations are under way, and there have been fresh atrocities, but the regime remains in power. Charles Krauthammer has encouraged the Obama Administration to declare the regime illegitimate… but by the time that happens, the lumberjacks of liberty will already be shouting “Timber!” as the dead regime comes tumbling down.

The melancholy truth is that tyranny is extremely difficult to overcome. Every successful revolution has been a desperate struggle, conducted in the defiance of inevitable defeat. As a religious and spiritual people, we have a tendency to regard the triumph of the righteous as assured, and see victory as the destiny of virtue. The evidence of history says otherwise. No one would have given the American patriots winning odds at the outset of the Revolutionary War, fought against the most disciplined and well-equipped military force of the era, by men who marched through the snow in the tatters of disintegrating boots.

Even patriotic Americans of today don’t always appreciate how special our achievement is… not just in its success, but its endurance. Most victorious “revolutions” end with a new class of slaves cleaning up the victory celebrations, beneath the whips of a new set of tyrants. As Binyon points out in his Times Online article, grisly regimes like North Korea remain in power, despite decades of poverty and manifest failure. The image of a lone, unarmed man standing against a line of tanks in Tienanmen Square hangs proudly in the gallery of Western memory, but it is virtually unknown to the people of China, its rightful owners. Brutal oppression works. That’s why humanity is still sick with it, after thousands of years.

Freedom is not a gift, or even a prize to be taken in battle. It is a challenge, and it is frightening. Modern Americans are born with the greatest inheritance of freedom enjoyed by any children of mankind, but they don’t guard it jealously. Too many of them view it as a currency to be exchanged for benefits. Freedom implies responsibility, and choice is meaningless without the risk of failure. We’ve come to define “fairness” as “everybody wins.” To build that rickety and doomed variety of “fairness,” freedom must be melted down into nails.

Our current government does not provide a rousing defense of liberty to those battling oppression in Iran, and elsewhere. What do those people think, when they see an exhausted West that wallows in self-loathing? What conclusions do they draw, when they hear the grandchildren of the Greatest Generation meekly concede that freedom is a burden, and life depends on the subsidies and control of the State? What encouragement can they find in the example of a nation that racks up debt as if it doesn’t expect to survive long enough for the bills to come due? Should the Iranian resistance be eager to fight and die, to replace mullahs with swindlers who steal trillions with midnight votes?

Capitalism is the practical expression of freedom. The two concepts are inseparable. Freedom of speech without property produces nothing but serfs with active social lives. Our current President was pleased to accept a politically-motivated Nobel Prize from a committee that honored Yasser Arafat, a murderous totalitarian thug. He visited Copenhagen to receive polite applause from people that gave socialist dictator Hugo Chavez a thunderous ovation for his anti-capitalist ravings. Could anyone in this Administration deliver a heartfelt endorsement of capitalism to the hungry ears of the Iranian protesters? Would any of them even be willing to try?

President Obama’s belief that America’s standing in the world would improve with his election, because he’s a “good listener,” is the exact opposite of the truth. Wise people, and nations, are always listening carefully… but the world improves when America speaks with confidence. Obama’s cherished Indonesian childhood, and the travels through the Muslim world he boasts of, have proven to mean nothing to the forces of Islamic fascism. He should have spent more time learning what his American heritage means to the people dying on the streets of Tehran, and those like them around the world.

Iran’s future remains cloudy. Even if the rumors about the Ayatollah Khamenei preparing to flee the country are true, a great deal of butchery may separate us from the moment when the wheels of his plane leave the tarmac. The wildest dream of democracy would have the Iranian people put the rest of the theocracy on the next plane behind him, with no blankets or pillows, and strict instructions to remain seated during the last hour of the flight. Even if the story took such an incredible turn, we should be under no illusions that the people of a liberated Iran would automatically love us… but we should love them anyway. The American flag was not raised solely for the benefit of those who are blessed and honored to stand beneath it. It is a challenge to all the tyrants of the world.

I dearly hope that, before his time in office is done, President Obama comes to understand that the challenge of freedom was not meant to be mumbled, or cloaked in the false vanity of regret. It should be bellowed in the faces of butchers and dictators. America has a moral obligation to remain strong, brave, and confident. No one on Earth should ever have to face a disaster and wonder if the Americans will be able to help. No victim of oppression should ever look at us and wonder if we still think freedom is priceless.

Welcome Home Vietnam Vets

Tears filled the eyes of some Vietnam veterans who were warmly greeted with cheers from their family and friends Sunday in an re-enactment of their original return from the war, when they were often met with angry demonstrators and harsh headlines.

The ceremony was a first for the 101st Airborne Division and the Army, said Maj. Patrick Seiber, an Army spokesman based at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.

"Our hope is that other units and other posts will follow our lead in having this type of ceremony," he said.

Mickey Leighton, a 72-year-old Army veteran from Naples, Fla., said listening to the applause and praise from the community was very emotional.

Leighton, who started his military career at Fort Campbell in 1956, served two tours in Vietnam including the Tet Offensive. He returned in 1972 in the midst of angry anti-war protests that often placed blame on the individual soldiers.

"We were treated very shabbily," he said. "In some cases they would throw eggs at us, they would throw empty beer bottles at us and they would call us baby-killers."

He said many soldiers would immediately change clothes because they didn't want to wear their uniforms in public in the late 1960s and early '70s while traveling home after returning from war.

"Never in the history of the military have I known of any division or any military installation providing a specific welcome home for Vietnam veterans," Leighton said. "This is very touching."

Iran In Revolt

Where is President Barack Obama? Why is he not supporting the stand for freedom for the Iranians?
Ralph Peters reports:

SILENCE is complicity. Our president's refusal to take a forthright moral stand on the side of the Iranian freedom marchers is read in Tehran as a blank check for the current regime.

...Foreign media reps are under house arrest. Cellphone frequencies are jammed. Students are killed and the killings disavowed.

And our president is "troubled," but doesn't believe we should "meddle" in Iran's internal affairs. (Meddling in Israel's domestic affairs is just fine, though.

There's more...

Via mujahidjohar:

Memorial Day

This bears repeating on Memorial Day.

National Medal of Honor Day, March 25th

Via Blackfive:

Today is National Medal of Honor Day. The United States Congress has designated March 25th of each year as NATIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR DAY, a day dedicated to Medal of Honor recipients. (Public Law 101-564) March 25th was selected as the date because it is the date of the first presentation of the award 156 years ago. You can read more about it here.

We here at Blackfive have written about MOH recipients since day one. I have met Ola Lee Mize (more here) and more MOH recipients later in life. We also have written about Paul Ray Smith, Michael Murphy, Jason Dunham, Michael Monsoor and Ross McGinnis among others.

More information about the MOH at the MOH Society here.

Be sure to read this guest column in Stars and Stripes by COL (ret) Howard. Here's a taste:

...Just after Christmas in 1968, I was on a mission to rescue a missing American soldier in enemy controlled Vietnam. We had just left the landing zone when we were attacked and many of us critically wounded, including me. For the next three and half hours, I had one choice: to lay and wait, or keep fighting for my men.

If I waited, I gambled that things would get better while I did nothing. If I kept fighting, no matter how painful, I could stack the odds that recovery for my men and a safe exodus was achievable.

On National Medal of Honor Day (March 25) — an annual tribute that I and other recipients humbly appreciate — I encourage Americans to recognize that in untenable situations, selfless people make the difference...

I'll close the post with this Military Motivator:

Update: Greyhawk has a great roundup of MOH Day posts and asks the question that I should have asked: Where the @#$% is the media on this?

Dear Mr. Obama

This bears repeating. This is the most viewed You Tube video this election year of more than eleven million viewers.

Iraq war veteran Sgt. Joe Cook:

When you call the Iraqi war a mistake, you disrespect the service and the sacrifice of everyone who has died promoting freedom.

watch video

Shep Smith's interview:

watch

h/t to HotAir

Independence Day

Freedom...Liberty....Glory
God Bless America

watch video

Happy 4th of July weekend.
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