Remembering Those Who Sacrificed For Our Freedom

Fortunately for me, my dad who served in the Navy during WWII, served as a Yeoman (secretary) to an Admiral in England and didn't have to see the battlefield on a ship. Had this not been the case, I and my next two older brothers of three would not have come into the world had he perished in battle. Here's a short video explaining the circumstances which those men faced in storming the beaches of Normandy.

I suppose someone's estimated what the quantity of Americans might have been born, had we not lost all those young men in both the European and Pacific Theaters of the war, but it makes one wonder just how different our nation may have become had WWII never happened.

I pray that we never experience a WWIII, for there very well might not be any nation to rebuild afterwards.
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THE NCO

by Patrick Kilchermann

A man who was not so young anymore walked through the woods, lost in thought. It was a heavy day and he preferred to observe it alone... for being surrounded by people who didn't understand was the only thing worse than loneliness. His feet carried him absentmindedly around each turn and his mind wrestled, as it always had, with one question. "Why." After a while he awoke from his walking-dream and realized he was now standing still. Something pulled his eyes upward and there, standing on top of a hill and against the shining sun was a man. The man. His man. Squinting against the light, unable yet to make out the man's face, his heart jumped to his throat; adrenaline shot to his veins. He didn't need to see his face: he knew who it was by his silhouette. The man on the hill was American. He was Japanese. German. Korean. Vietnamese. Italian. French. British. He was white and yellow and black and brown. He seemed to stand proudly, firmly planted, arms on his hips. To his body clung an untold number of packs and straps and gear and supplies that made him look as if he weighed 250 pounds. In the mind of our man, this figure was perpetually twenty years older than he, and it was therefore like a punch to the gut to see instead after all these years how truly young he actually was. And yet, the man on the hill radiated a certain wisdom and confidence that our man had still never managed to obtain. This was the man who had shown ours the ropes. He had taught him how to walk. How to think. How to scrounge. How to improvise. How to listen. How to set up an ambush. How to kill. And on one particularly terrible night that still haunted our man's nightmares... he had taught them all how to die. From this man on the hill had come venom and anger and rage and unfathomable tenderness. He was often the last to sleep, the last to eat, the first to cross. He was at once both a mother hen and a vicious badger. Our man caught his breath and wanted to call out to the one on the hill -- but something stopped him... and in squinting tighter he realized what it was. The man on the hill was wearing one thing that our man, in all their time together, had never seen him wear before: it was the most peaceful and happy smile you've ever seen. Our man wiped his eyes, and the man on the hill was gone. He exhaled... He relaxed back and deep into his civilian shoes. From that smile our man won his liberation. He straightened up his old bones, feeling younger himself. And he said aloud: "This walk was beautiful. But I think I'm ready to go home now."

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Patrick Kilchermann
founder, Concealed Carry University