Independence Day - 2002

Friends, Citizens and Patriots:

From my lofty perch of chronological overachievement, well out of the line of fire in today's confusing if mortal confrontations, I greet you as one who has been there and done that. 

This sacred day of national remembrance is made all the more poignant for me by the demise of my younger brother, Wesley D. Belveal, Chief Gunner's Mate, U. S. Navy, Retired, just ten days ago. He died at age 81, and was buried in his uniform, with full military honors, in the Golden Gate Military
Cemetery, in San Francisco, California. May he rest in peace!

"Wes" was an apt paradigm of his generation. When the clouds of war began to gather over Europe, with Hitler's foray into the low countries, Wes
decided to forego the customary university education that beckoned his age group and, instead, enlisted in the United States Navy under the special terms
of what was then known as a "minority cruise" - that accepted 17-year-olds
for regular navy duty. He was to remain in uniform until his retirement, some
twenty-five years later.

He was not unique. In those dark days, while the european conflict drew ever closer our own shores, millions of American kids like my younger brother(s) opted for the agonies of war, over the relative securities of a safe berth in a University or other "exempted" civilian pursuit. Such was the collective mind-set of what would later be called "The Greatest Generation". 

Patriotism was a universal characteristic. Love of country was a common trait. Such emotions, rather than eliciting a degree of embarassment, were badges of
distinction and sources of great pride - both individually and to the nation as a
whole.

By the time "the last good war" war victoriously concluded, 16-million of our
countrymen - and women - had put on their uniforms and put their lives on the
line in defense of the ideas and ideals that makes "American" a distinctive label
throughout this world. A "draft" law had been passed and put into effect, but the vast majority of America's defenders were volunteers. They signed up
because it was "the right thing to do".

By the time the forces of the Third Reich and the Japanese Empire had been
vanquished - in 1945 - 292,131 American lives had been lost and another
671,801 had sustained wounds in action. A high price, indeed, but for the
freedom of America and - arguably - the world, it was deemed well worth it.

As our nation's birthday arrives in this year of 2002, some five million American veterans of World War-II still remain alive. Their average age is 79, and they are dying off at a rate of a thousand per day. May they all rest in well-earned peace!

In this time of terroristic peril, it seems especially instructive to recall similar
national challenges in the past, and how they were met by a combination of
uncommon courage and almost universal self-sacrifice. Hopefully these traits of national character are still present within us. We need them no less now than we have in the past. Our enemies are no less deadly and relentless. Their devices of destruction arrayed against us are no less diabolical and inhuman. Their fanatical pangs of jealousy are no less insatiable. And once more, the issue is national survival.

So on this day of celebration, we should all set aside a few minutes in which to pay our own silent tributes to those who suffered and bled and died for the
national blessings that we presently take so much for granted. The survival
of our nation is no accident. The price of the our national existence has been
repeatedly written in bloody totals that American patriots have been called on to pay. 

Thank God that on each of these occasions, over a period of more than two-
hundred-fifty years, we have had citizen-defenders who were ready, willing and - as heroic history attests - able to meet each successive threat and put it down.  

To each and every one of them, we owe our collective national existence. In memory of each of those battle-scarred and fallen heroes, we - as their direct
beneficiaries - should never forget that freedom, while not free, is worth whatever it costs.

And we should especially remember this when our turn for sacrifice arrives.

Enjoy America's Birthday!

Lorenzo Dee Belveal
Veteran WW-II, U. S. Navy
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Copyright © Lorenzo Dee Belveal                                                                 July  4, 2002                                                                                                   All All rights reserved