Despite how utterly massive they might be, it is never the size of the arsenal nor the strength of the warrior. Rather, it is a heart bent on sacrifice that is the most potent weapon of all.

While we tediously check our weaponry before entering into battle, do we check our hearts? For without exception, that is the greatest weapon of all.

We are notorious for ‘running’ around self-righteously declaring our rights to this and to that. But if we were to reflect upon the millions who ‘ran’ across bloodied battlefields so that we would have rights to declare, I think we’d do a whole lot less declaring and a whole more appreciating.

A true patriot does not seek to live off of the sacrifices of others. Rather, a true patriot is the one who sacrifices so that others might live. And therefore, we might be quite wise to take a moment and ponder the reality that a nation heavy on recipients and light on patriots will soon have neither.

To consider the rights of others before I exercise my own, to see my fellowman as my opportunity not my liability, and to understand that a life shaped by Biblical values is a life of deep endurance and raw power...to embrace all of this is to be the very thing that a wounded world is begging for.

Thank you to those men and women who put self aside because they held the thought of us on the inside. So, whether that be the bloodied beaches on D-Day or any number of other battles remembered or forgotten, we now hold you on the inside and we say “thank you.

Many are rather easily able to contemplate the heroism of sacrifice, yet it is the few who are brave enough to move that notion from thought to action. And it is to those of you who made that move that my heart salutes and my soul marvels.

Freedom is a privilege, not a right. And as such, I have no right to ask anything of it, but I have the privilege of giving everything to it.

Without freedom, the soul of man perishes long before the body dies. And if nothing else, the haunting specter of a soulless humanity should stir us to patriotism of the greatest sort.