WHAT IS THE MILITARY

What is the Military? And who are the Military? Here you will be awestruck as you behold every single state flag flying along with our Military flags and our American flag . . . because all have given of their finest, and many have paid the ultimate.

So, who and what is the Military?

I grew up during World War II and my Mother and my Father both worked at Firestone building planes. My Father was a welder, and my Mother put rivets on the wings of airplanes.

The children of America and some other countries, do not know the terrible horrors of war. So the only way any one would learn would be to honor, to hear, to listen to, to support, to accept, to care, to receive all the truths and all the history that is recorded about the wars, and many of those things that are not recorded, but are hidden, and are not talked about, the stories that no one wanted to hear back then, nor even now. Now, many want to build monuments to the dead, stone statues and stone columns that neither need anything or want anything, because military monuments to those that build them is honoring those who have given their lives for freedom and the flag and for America, and even you and me. We ought to remember the fallen.

However, from the north to the south, from the east to the west, from corner to corner, and from coast to coast, live the survivors, those who returned home, the crippled, the arm-less, the leg-less, the maimed, the heartbroken, the aged, the dying, the broken ones, the ones who must live with the horrors and the memories of holding their friends as they died covered in blood, filled with pain and tears, those who have to live with the faces burned on their minds of every one they killed in the name of freedom, those who have to live with the smell of blood and dying.

Now, having grown up in World War II, I am for honoring those who have given of their lives for my freedom and for America's honor. But I am more for taking of that money and supplying the living with what they need to simply live, the ones who have returned, the families that are struggling, the loved ones that are trying to put together the lives that were wrenched from them by war! Many live in poverty. Many live in sickness. Many live without even the daily necessities of life. To dishonor the living while honoring the dead is dishonorable, even to the dead.

So, who and what is the Military?

The Military is the entirety of it all. It only begins with the one in Uniform. Behind that one is a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a son, a daughter, a wife, and many, many others who love that one in Uniform. And no matter when or how the one in Uniform returns to his or her loved ones, many changes have taken place, and many are mind and heart shattering, unhealable, and needing repairs, and helps, and comforts, and understandings.

My younger brother, when 48 years of age, a Marine Vet, went to the dentist one day to have some teeth removed, and he was told he had but 8 months to live. When he applied for financial assistance from the government on his Veteran's application, he was repeatedly told his illness was not serious enough to allow assistance. He kept applying, living at the time with my mother who was on social security herself. Finally, he received his first check one month before he died. He lived a year and a half after the diagnosis, and died in a Veteran's hospital in Tampa, Florida, the same week the Challenger went down.

So, flying here are all the flags of all the States that wrap their fallen in honor and the American flag covering all those who have given of their lives, but let us not forget to remember all those in every State who are living heroes, that daily join their fallen friends 'neath the green, green grass covered by white crosses of honor and valor. Because they survived, and made it home, and did not die, does not make them any less heroes. They ought not to have to continue the war after they come home, to gain assistance from the government for the necessities of life.

Many of them are carrying in their lives, greater tragedies than dying. Many of them though, having returned, die from the wounds they suffered for you and me. Let us honor the dead by also honoring the living. For the wounded in heart, we can cry and pray, and for the wounded in spirit, we can cry and pray, but for the wounded in body, let us supply!

Martha

Alabama	Alaska	Arizona	Arkansas	California
Colorado	Connecticut	Delaware	Florida	Georgia
Hawaii	Idaho	Illinois	Indiana	Iowa
Kansas	Kentucky	Louisiana	Maine	Maryland
Massachutes	Michigan	Minnesota	Mississippi	Missouri
Montana	North Dakota	Nebraska	Nevada	New Hampshire
New Mexico	New York	North Carolina	New Jersey	Ohio
Oklahoma	Oregon	Pennsylvania	Rhode Island	South Dakota
South Carolina	Tennessee	Texas	Utah	Vermont
Virginia	Washington	Wisconsin	West Virginia	Wyoming