Veteran's Memorial (2011)

In the modern lifestyle, we major on minor things. We often count numbers, when we should make numbers count.

The Pythagorean Theorem has 24 words, our Lord's prayer has 66 words, the Ten Commandments has 179 words, the Declaration of Independence has 170 words, the Constitution of the United States has 7,800 words including the 27 amendments, the federal regulation controlling the sale of cabbage has 26,000 words. This regulation, as well as every other regulation controlling the life of the American citizen, is just one of our many problems.

The average salary for a Washington bureaucrat is $126,000 per year. One of my friends, now deceased, Robert Futrell, a congressman's assistant, told me, without hesitation, that most bureaucrats spend their days planning for inactivity... mostly attending cocktail parties and sumptuous buffets provided by lobbyists to whom they must go for funds to support their candidates. The veteran, a type enslavement, never recovers from his time of subservient encasement. Certainly, as an officer, and in this time of volunteerism, he must prove his abilities with testing, license, memberships, etc. The bureaucrat just “knows someone”.

If not killed, disabled, the veteran is very much on his own, expected to pickup the pieces and “keep on keeping on”... paying the taxes in order that the government can keep sending out entitlement checks to 49 percent of the population.

This totally blind, 100% disabled, service connected, medical officer, veteran of the Korean Era, to date has never been afforded by the government even a white cane or talking watch. The disabled veteran in supposed to have an allotment for adaptation of his home. I have offered to give $1000.00 to anyone, anywhere, that can show that this veteran has ever received anything at all from any veterans group, civic club, church, or even family member, in recognition of my service. That is alright, at the sunset of my life, I did not serve for recognition.

My friend Doris, was born and raised on a farm in south Georgia. Her father was a veteran of Korea. At age 16, her mother died. She said, “I never thought I could stop crying.” and then, a few years later, her father died, leaving she and a younger brother. While she was away in business college, her brother went to Vietnam. He returned, head wounds, loss of one eye but, he married a beautiful girl he had met while stationed in North Carolina. She moved to North Carolina to be with them and this is when I met Doris.

On the 2^nd anniversary of her brother’s marriage, his wife gave birth to a son, and the beloved wife died 10 days later. Doris began caring for this small boy, Zach, when he was ten days old. Two years later, her only brother died and then it was just she and her nephew. Graduating from High School, age 18, Zach joined the military. He was killed in Iraq. She wrote me, at least I do not have to go through another military funeral, the handing of another flag to me, drenched with my tears.

Don't allow the enemy to set the perimeters of your faith. There are times in the blackness of blindness, the depths of despair over world conditions, that you want to step into a manhole and pull the cover over it... to just escape it all. God does not put anything on us that we cannot handle... He was there before us... is always at the intersections of your life before you get there. Perhaps, several hundred times, in leading prayers at public functions, I have prayed, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16) With veterans, their families, all hard-working, God-fearing, tax-paying Americans, when you have government, you have what government can do. When you have war, you have what war can do. When you have prosperity or even depression, you have what they can do, but when you have prayer, and the grace of God, you have what God can do. With veterans, in this time of American history, we want what God can do.