John Brown. Samuel Hadley. Caleb Harrington. Jonathon Harrington. Robert Munroe. Issac Muzzy. Jonas Parker. Ash Porter.
On April 19, 1775, these eight Americans were killed in battle. They were the first casualties of the war that would result in a new, free, and democratic country. Since this battle at Lexington, Americans have strived to protect what they see as the rights of all men.
In the 1930s and 40s, Hitler and Stalin threatened democracy with dictatorship. Americans enlisted in droves to fight for the four freedoms - freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. Bob Bush dropped out of high school when the war began to be a Navy medic. Before going to war, he told his worried mother, "I'm going into the service to help people, not to kill them." On May 2, 1945, while serving in Okinawa, Japan, he was called to help a Marine officer who was gravely wounded. While administering plasma to the Marine from a bottle in one hand, he drew his pistol with the other and fired into the enemy ranks until he ran out of ammunition, killing six of the enemy despite his own serious wounds and the loss of an eye. For his valor, Petty Officer Bush received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Others like him made the ultimate sacrifice without any further acknowledgement than sent-home dog tags because they refused to look the other way when tyranny faced them.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt has been quoted as saying, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." The responsibility of protecting freedom is now upon us. On September 11, 2001, four American airliners were high jacked by nineteen men. Two airplanes were crashed into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and the last crashed 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed. These men attacked us because our beliefs in freedom and democracy. They kill to scare those who are free - they wish to enforce their radical views with terror. On September 20, 2001 - just nine days after the attack - President George W. Bush delivered this message to Americans: "We have suffered great loss. And in our grief and anger we have found our mission and our moment. Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom - the great achievement of our time, and the great hope of every time - now depends on us."
Americans have always believed in freedom. The founders of this country were willing to take on the strongest military in the world for what they believed to be the "unalienable rights" of men. The risks were great. When the eight men died at Lexington, they had no idea where America would be today; however, like David in the pit of lions, they had complete faith in their cause. This faith helped the Patriots defeat the British lions in red.
Today, we value the freedom of us and our loved ones above all else. We believe in the American dream. We believe in helping others have what we do. Today, in what some call an age of terror, we fight to define our times, not be defined by them. As long as we have faith in our beliefs like are forefathers before us, this will be an age of freedom and democracy, here and around the world.
