The Robert Conrad Syndrome - What Is Freedom? Part IV

A double header today because I am furious -

You may or may not remember Robert Conrad. He is an actor that I first encountered on afternoon television re-runs on the show “The Wild, Wild,West”. He later starred in “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” and another show where he was a park ranger in Alaska or something. He later did a battery commercial where he dared the viewer to knock a battery (Everready?) off of his shoulder.

People with an ax to grind or a chip on their shoulder irritate me. I am constantly flummoxed by the things that people become offended over, or get their feelings hurt about. I have a daughter in her mid teens who finds some reason to be upset about some manner of drama on almost a daily basis. Unfortunately, we have far too many “adults” who live to be offended.

I tire of political correctness. I tire of people who are in the tiniest of minorities on an issue getting their way because we live in a society that embraces diversity and tolerance for every fruitcake lifestyle and every little bitty feeling. I am tired of hearing of how a single person that is offended by some public display of religion manages to shut down a event enjoyed by thousands.

IN THIS LATEST BATTLE, a single complaint has forced the cancellation of a meaningful and sincere portion of the FUNERAL OF VETERANS. In a nutshell, an American flag has 13 folds. During veterans funerals the flag is folded and presented to the family. As the flag is folded, a particular recitation occurs explaining a meaning for each fold. You can read the link for details, but a couple of them refer to the Christian God and to the God of Abraham.

It shouldn’t surprise you that a single complaint came from Riverside, California during a veteran’s funeral, prompting the National Cemetery Administration to cancel the recitation during the flag folding. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) is leading the charge to have this decision overturned. Good for him. Charlie Waters, parliamentarian for the American Legion of California, said he's advising memorial honor details to ignore the edict. Good for him too. If civil disobedience works for the left, maybe we should try it too.

This post isn’t about freedom of religion, although it is freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion that is mentioned in the Constitution. This post is about the freedom to be unshackled from the idiocy of people who are supposed to be adults in this country. There are too many people who use the wrong venues for shoving their political correctness and pansy-ass opinions on the rest of normal America.

Freedom is being able to bury my veteran father in the way I choose to do so, not the way some observer of the ceremony thinks I should.

To the childish person who has the audacity to complain, Guess what? When my father is buried underneath that flag the moment isn’t about YOU. It is about my mother and my brothers and my father, and honoring the impact he has had on our lives. No, I am wrong. It is about you, it just isn’t about your needs or your feelings. It is about you having the right to express your pansy-ass opinion about the public display of religion because men like my father bled on the soil of more than one country to assure that you can do so. My father finds it hard to stand up from a chair sometimes because his knees are shot from humping machine guns up frozen Korean mountains. He has worn full dentures since the age of 18 because of a Chinese rifle butt being smashed on his face in the dead of night at a place called the Chosin Reservoir. He has a 30% hearing loss because of the explosions and artillery and gunfire for 14 months, plus another six in Vietnam. He earned FOUR purple hearts so your arrogant, self absorbed, lazy, pitiful, spineless ass can be so selfishly pathetic by forcing your absurd viewpoint on people who simply live their lives the way they want to live them without public statements or new conferences or 9th Circuit Court appeals.

Write your congressman about this TODAY. Write editorials in your paper TODAY. Blog about this TODAY.

Freedom is precious. Freedom is individual. Freedom is knowing that your sacrifices were not in vain. Freedom is knowing that there are always a few good men ready to pick up the flag and charge forward just as in decades past. Freedom is expressing your spirituality and using it to honor those who have sacrificed because of something larger than themselves.

There is freedom in knowing that I have served and fought for others to be free. I guess it is too much to expect that others appreciate their freedom by showing a little respect.