I called my congressman today.  I’ve done that a lot lately, but this time there were tears in my eyes and my voice cracked as I explained my position.  I had to ask the young woman on the phone to give me a minute while I collected myself.

That doesn’t happen to me; I’ve lost friends on battlefields and stood strong for my Soldiers when they grieved.  I wear a chrome bracelet engraved with one of those fine American’s names and can describe the day that fine young man gave his life for his country, with pride and only a hint of moisture in my eyes.  I saw my father cry once, when my great uncle was late for Christmas Dinner and we went to get him, thinking perhaps his old truck was broken down.  Dad was the one who wouldn’t let me go into the house.  Even he couldn’t compose himself, though I could see how hard he tried, as he came out of the house where my great uncle was born and where he had recently passed away in his sleep.  There is a standard a young man can strive to live up to. 

A few years later, and for the majority of my adult life I was one of those whom General James Gavin lauded by saying “Show me a man who will jump out of an airplane, I’ll show you a man who will fight for his country!”  I did both those things and did my best to make my father, General Gavin and every Paratrooper who preceded me proud of me while I did them.  I leave my success in those endeavors to all those August Men and to those I was privileged to lead during those years, to judge.

Having proved my manhood to you as best I can, what reduces me to tears when I call my congressman?  One politically correct term for it is the “prolonging of life issue”, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it described before as the “Final Solution.”  You see, my father taught me more than the need to be strong in the face of adversity and personal crisis.  He taught me the “American Dream”, those lessons taught me, in my own words, “In America, no matter what you want, if you work long enough and hard enough, you can earn it.”  He taught me about the Second Amendment, and echoed the founding fathers words, “the rights guaranteed by the second amendment are the ones that secure all the others.”  My grandfather and my great uncle taught me about American history, our family had left Scandinavia and moved to Dakota Territory in 1838.  They fought Indians, blizzards, hardship, raised a huge family in a house made of dirt (sod), and fought for the Union 25 years after adopting this Nation.  They lived the American Dream, as did every other American in our young Nation.

What brings me to tears today, is the finally obvious and clearly displayed un-American desires of the liberals and the Democrat Party in power today.  60 odd years ago those men, some described by their Nazi enemies as “Devils in Baggy Pants”, whose deeds I tried to live up to during my military career, took brutal losses during their fight against the nation that promulgated the “Final Solution” and now, the same Nation they, and I, risked our lives for advances an identical solution, with a new enemy.  This “Liberal Solution” not aimed at a racial group, or a religious group, but every American who is not one of our elected leaders.  Eventually it will be aimed at the liberal’s political opponents.  The first to suffer the “Liberal Solution” will be the aged.  President Obama gave a politically correct description of euthanasia in his televised Obama-care special, described by Stephanie Gutmann in the Telegraph.co.uk as the “duty to die.”  It doesn’t take any stretch of the imagination to see this “duty to die” extending to smokers, drinkers, anyone judged to be overweight, McDonalds customers, SUV drivers and finally, political opponents, or those who didn’t give to the Obama Campaign. 

To imagine that, after 230 odd years, American’s are about to give control of their lives, and deaths, to the federal government, denies everything I have been taught and everything I have witnessed of the greatness of America.  Our Founding Fathers placed a millstone, called the Constitution, about the neck of the federal government.  That millstone, and the individual liberty it recognized as “Divinely Bestowed”, has allowed my family and millions of families like mine, to succeed, through nothing more than hard work, sweat, effort and desire.  Today, Americans are about to remove the remnants of that worn and weakened millstone, turning over to the federal government absolute control over every aspect of our lives.  The very government George Washington likened to fire, “a useful tool, but a fearful Master.”
 
Today, our best hope lays with the so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats.  My own congressman, Larry Kissell (D NC8), nominally one of these creatures, when I asked his aide, couldn’t feel my soul rending disgust, instead waffling because of the possible projected cost.  If the cost issues could be solved he would gladly embrace the legislation, “Liberal Solution” and all.  Apparently he looks forward to exercising that level of control over our lives, what reason could allow his denial of this portion of the Obama-care legislation but the immeasurable increase of his, and the liberals own power.  Cost can not outweigh the loss of our most basic divinely bestowed liberties.                            

My families’ America stands on the edge of a precipice, one I am not convinced we can come back from.  Our President urges us to accept the hard choices, take the pill and go quietly into the night. 

Never. Not. In. My. America. Ever.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
 
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
    
    Dylan Thomas