November 11, 2013 – VETERANS DAY … Thank You for Your Service to Protect Our Liberty and Freedom … God Bless You All

VETERANS DAY  2013: To all those who have served … THANK YOU TO OUR AMERICAN HEROES!!!

Please remember that Freedom is never Free, not just today, but everyday. However, today we send a special thank you to the brave men and women who have protected our freedoms, liberty and way of life.  THANK YOU!!! We can never say or do enough to show our appreciation for the sacrifice that our Veterans, Our Heroes, have done in their duty to the United States. Please always take time to thank a soldier, I am sure they would appreciate it.

So often we take the past and present service of our brave men and women of the Armed Forces for granted. They do such a tremendous job keeping us safe that is sometimes forgot.  Know, that these individuals fight for peace, fight for freedom and fight for the very liberties that you and I enjoy every day.

Doolittle Raiders’ final toast.

80 heroes risked their lives during WWII on a bombing mission on Japan who became known as  Doolittle Raiders. Just five years ago there were 11 surviving members of Doolittle’s Raider, now sadly there are only 4.

Three of the four surviving Raiders attended the toast Saturday at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. Their late commander, Lt. Gen. James “Jimmy” Doolittle, started the tradition but they decided this autumn’s ceremony would be their last.

“May they rest in peace,” Lt. Col. Richard Cole, 98, said before he and fellow Raiders — Lt. Col. Edward Saylor, 93, and Staff Sgt. David Thatcher, 92 — sipped cognac from specially engraved silver goblets. The 1896 cognac was saved for the occasion after being passed down from Doolittle.

Hundreds invited to the ceremony, including family members of deceased Raiders, watched as the three each called out “here” as a historian read the names of all 80 of the original airmen.

The fourth surviving Raider, Lt. Col. Robert Hite, 93, couldn’t travel to Ohio because of health problems.

But son Wallace Hite said his father, wearing a Raiders blazer and other traditional garb for their reunions, made his own salute to the fallen with a silver goblet of wine at home in Nashville, Tenn., earlier in the week.

God Bless the men and woman of our Armed Forces both past and present.

UPDATE I: Sadly our veterans of WWII, Our Greatest Generation are dying at a rate of more than 600 a day. On a personal note, all of my 6 uncles who served during WWII have passed, including my Uncle Red who is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Which is what makes me sick to my stomach that today we will see Barack Obama laying a wreath of the Tombs of the Unknown’s and make some speech all the while just a month ago he maliciously, purposely and vindictively made sure that an open air memorial like the WWII memorial was closed and barricaded so that Honor Flight vets could not get to it.  Instead, the veterans had to force their way past Obama’s barricades and patriots had to take matters into their own hands VIDEO).