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Remember Them by Mike Morgan

Sgt Grit,
This Sunday my church will have our annual Memorial Day Service. We Honor those who have fought and died to allow us the right to worship and serve Jesus Christ. Those who have served will be recognized during the service, we have a Color Guard from a local high school ROTC come in. This year we will honor a special Marine who just passed away last week. Cpl. David Miller, he was an Iwo Jima Marine, a Purple Heart Recipient and most importantly a Pastor of 45 years. I sat next to him during our Sunday services and many of opportunity to talk with him. His love for the Corps was only surpassed by his love for Jesus Christ and serving Him. In Honor of his service to our country, I have enclosed something that I wrote to display on our bulletin board at my church. I am no writer, but just wanted our younger generation to remember where their freedom comes form and its cost. It is not directly related to the Marine Corps, but to all of our servicemen and woman. If possible could you pass this on to allow some of the youth of America to understand what freedom cost. Thank you to those who have served and serve.

Semper Fi
Mike Morgan
Sgt. USMC 1981-1990

Remember Them

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Over 230 years ago our forefathers established this great Nation, a Nation that would become a beacon to those who yearned to be free. Free from oppression, free to worship, free to speak their mind, free to defend themselves and to live without fear of being persecuted with out a fair hearing.

In their infinite wisdom, they realized that in order to protect those freedoms, they would have to establish a strong military to defend those freedoms. Thus was born the United States of America?s Armed Services. The United States Army, The United States Navy, The Unites State Marine Corps, The United States Coast Guard and later the United States Air Force.

Every year we gather to honor and ?Memorialize? those who have served our Nation by serving in our Armed Forces. We honor those who gave their lives, so that we as Americans can live free. Some have returned home from the wars to go on and live long productive lives, others made the ultimate sacrifice; they gave their lives for our freedom. These are the Men and Woman we Honor on Memorial Day.
Remember Them, Honor Them, and Memorialize Them.

These are the men who froze at Valley Forge, and then crossed the Delaware to defeat their enemy. The victory would begin the defeat of one of the world?s most powerful militaries by a ragtag Army of Patriots. But more importantly they won the right to be free, free citizens of the United States of America. That freedom is the freedom you now enjoy.
Remember Them, Honor Them, and Memorialize Them.

Again, in less than forty years they would defend our freedoms against the same powerful military. Again they would prevail and we would keep our freedom. It would be the last time our young men would allow a foreign nation to place their military on our soil.
Remember Them, Honor Them, and Memorialize Them.

In ?The War Between the States? our young men stepped up to preserve our great Nation. Brother fought against brother, each believing that they were fighting for the right cause. In the end 618,000 men would die on the battlefields of the Civil War. In the end, our Nation was preserved. The men who fought, on both sides, who had survived would go on to lead our Nation into an era of unprecedented growth.
Remember Them, Honor Them, and Memorialize Them.

In ?The War to End All Wars? they helped to defend the European people from being defeated and again protected our freedoms. The ?doughboys? helped to turn the tide of the war, and in doing so 50,000 young men lost their lives. Yet they prevailed and we remained free.
Remember Them, Honor Them, and Memorialize Them.

Our ?Greatest Generation? of young men and woman would again step up to defeat a ruthless enemy. They would fight on the battlefields of Europe, Asia, Africa and places most of them could not pronounce. Yet they defeated the Germans, Japanese, and Italians, not only to preserve our freedoms but also to liberate those who could not defend themselves. The Unites States Army would liberate Europe and defeat the Germans and Italian Armies, while the United States Marine Corps would avenge the attack on Pearl Harbor and defeat the Japanese throughout the Pacific. The United States Navy would defeat both the German and Japanese Navies on the high seas, and the fledgling ?Air Corp? would help the Navy and Marine Pilots rule the airways. All toll over 418,000 young men and woman of the Unites States would give their lives to keep our freedom.
Remember Them, Honor Them, and Memorialize Them.

In ?The Forgotten War? 36,516 men and woman would be killed while trying to defeat Communism on the Korean Peninsula. They would hold a Chinese Army, estimated to be twice their strength, to a stale mate. Today they continue to guard the ?38 Parallel? to defeat the spread of Communism and preserve our freedom.
Remember Them, Honor Them, and Memorialize Them.

In the jungles of Vietnam they would loose, not only the lives of 58,217 of their brothers and sisters, to a ferocious and cruel enemy, but they would have to return to a Nation who was ungrateful for their service. A Nation of people that would call them ?baby killer, murders, and war mongers.? They not only lost brothers and sisters in combat, but also in the years since many have lost their lives to ?Agent Orange? and their mental capacity to cope with the horrors of the war. Most importantly they lost the support of the Nation they so willing fought for. They served with pride and dignity; they did the job that many ran away from. Some fought not by choice, yet they die their job. They deserve better than what we, as a Nation have given them. As a Nation we do not deserve their forgiveness, not until we realize that we as a Nation were at fault for the war, not them. We elected those in office who chose to send them their.
Remember Them, Honor Them, and Memorialize Them.

In 2001 another enemy attacked our great Nation. For the first time in over a hundred years an enemy stepped foot on our soil. Today we still battle that enemy. He is a different kind of enemy. He is a coward. He kills innocent woman and children of our Nation and other Nations who do not believe the same as he does. He uses his own woman and children to fight his battles. Again our young woman and men have stepped up to make the sacrifices needed to defend our freedoms. As it is their duty to defend our freedoms and us, it is our duty to support them and their families. It is our duty to demand that they are well cared for upon their return home, it is our duty to demand that they be properly equipped, it is our duty to pay our respect to them upon their death.

We as a Nation of free people have a duty to support those who now serve us and a duty to remember them in our prayers. It is our duty to honor those who so willing serve to preserve our freedoms. We have a duty to memorialize those who have fallen on our behalf. We as a Nation must NEVER FORGET, that the freedoms we have were given to us with the blood of young men and woman who were so willing to die for us, to allow us keep those freedom. So as you lay your head down tonight, remember to ask God to protect them and watch over them, remember to thank God for those young men and woman who since the birth of our Nation, have so willing served us.
Remember Them, Honor Them, and Memorialize Them

Michael W. Morgan
Sgt. USMC 1981-1990

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