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Arlington National Cemetary holds the burial sites of approximately 400,000 veterans and their eligible dependents. This coming Monday in America is Memorial Day. It is a day to remember all the men and women who have given up their lives to secure freedom for the rest of us. They paid the ultimate price, the ultimate sacrifice. They paid with their life. And with it, they gave up all their hopes and dreams so that you and I can live and have ours. Many of them died young and even if they weren’t all that young, they still were full of life with many years ahead of them. If you stop for a moment and consider their lives what truly stands out to me is they died for the freedom of not just their family and friends, but countless strangers that they considered like family, you and I, their fellow American citizens. How in the world can we not be forever grateful to them? The purchase price they paid for our freedom was their safety and they paid it in full.
Unfortunately, today, I can’t help but think we are starting to live in a world where we are willing to put our “safety” in front of our freedoms, and I would argue, even more importantly, the freedoms of others around us. In many ways, I see us allowing the narrative to feed us a way of thinking that is more selfish and less selfless. It is a mindset that divides us. It is a mindset that tries to lead me into thinking that I am more important than you which then, sadly, leads me to having no empathy for those around me.
The perfect example of this, sadly, was the Covid-19 pandemic which still sits closely in our rearview mirror. Now, I know the moment I touch base on this topic, political ideologies will start to try and intervene here. I encourage anyone reading this to not get sucked into that vacuum of the political cloud as that might be the very reason a blog like this is even needed. Instead, let’s be smarter than this and put the politics aside so we can tackle the real issues at hand here and that is this: Does the purchase price for our safety have to be our freedom? Are we being led to believe that to be safe, we must give up our freedom? Think about that for a second. Isn’t this exactly what happened during the Covid pandemic? We were put on lockdown, many were forced to take a vaccine that had no historical evidence of being safe or effective at the time it was to be taken, and it divided us as a people between pro-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers. It divided us so much that friendships ended, and family relationships shattered. And why did this all happen? Because as a whole we got sold that to have our safety we must give up our freedom. Folks, I am here to boldly say that this is madness. How did we allow this? Are we to allow this moving forward? We need to get back to selfless living to not allow this to continue. Because if we don’t, we will wake up as a people who are no longer free at all. I am here to boldly proclaim we don’t want this. Once that cat gets out of the bag, you will not be able to chase him and get him back in the bag once we are forced to see what that world will look like. This is the exact opposite that the lives that are memorialized in Arlington lived for and died for. Lives that we should be forever grateful for. Lives that we should learn from!
I will leave you with this true story. I was talking to my boss. This was during the height of the Pandemic. All the chaos was going on and we were in the middle of all the uncertainty. I told him something that I believe shocked him. I said to him, “Hey, let me just say this to you about what is going on. My life, your life, and believe it or not, not even my son’s life is worth giving up our freedoms for. If you don’t believe me, go into Arlington National Cemetary and look at the countless graves lined up in isle after isle and ask yourself this: How many of them believe their life was worth more than your freedom?” I then continued and said this, “If that doesn’t give you enough proof, ask all those, whose remains tragically sit at the bottom of the seas and oceans around the world, who were willing to give up their life to try and get from an oppressed land, where they had no freedom, to get to a land where their freedom would be secure…ask them if their life was worth their freedom. The answer would be “no” and they proved it with their life!” I ended the conversation adamantly saying this, “No life…not mine… not my son’s… and not yours is worth giving up our freedom for!” Needless to say, my boss didn’t have much to say and all I ask of you is to think that through. We here in America have been very spoiled. We are in a time in our history where we simply cannot afford to take our freedoms for granted. Now more than ever, we need to be selfless in our thoughts and understand just how valuable our freedoms are. Whether you’re a vaxxer or a non-vaxxer is not the issue. I will not disclose whether I took the vaccine or not, because quite frankly it simply doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you and I keep our freedoms intact, and more importantly, that we love and respect each other’s freedoms because we still live in a country that affords us to do so.
So today on this Memorial Day weekend, I hope that I can leave you with this. While the barbeques are going on and everyone is enjoying a day off from work, I hope you take a moment to think of the sacrifice given by all the lives lying in cemeteries all across our great nation. I hope you take to heart what they gave up, and more importantly, why they did it. Let us be thankful as a people that they’ve afforded us the right to have an opinion, a stance, and the freedom to make decisions. In honoring them, let us respect one another’s freedom, even if we don’t agree with a stance or an opinion. There is a reason we are called the U.S.A. and that very first letter should be the most important letter for all of us and what it stands for: “United”. We owe them that much, if not, so much more!
For those of us who get to live out our hopes and dreams on the backs of those that gave up theirs for us, let us not forget that the greatest gift they gave us is, and always will be, our freedom!
To the families that have lost a loved one who died to secure my freedom, I will be forever grateful for the sacrifice your loved one made. I will also be forever grateful to you as well for the sacrifice you have had to endure. Your loved one was the best of the best. They will never be forgotten. I promise you they will never be lost on this free American! I hope this blog honors you and, most importantly, honors your loved one.
And to all others, if my safety needs to be at risk because I refuse to give up your freedom of choice, then so be it. And in doing so, if it causes me to lose my life, then let me be honored to give up my life in a different way than those who died in war, but for the very same cause: Your Freedom!
So… is giving up our freedom the price that must be paid to secure our safety? I hope this answer is undeniably “NO”! If you don’t believe me, listen to the message coming from the land of Arlington Cemetary and also from the depths of seas around the world. The answer should then be quite clear.
God bless anyone who reads this! Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend.
Have Character!
J. Noah Russell
