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"Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country." --George Washington

USMC 233rd ANNIVERSARY

On 10 November 1775, the Second Continental Congress resolved to create two battalions of Continental Marines for the War of Independence from Britain. In 1798, President John Adams signed the Act establishing the United States Marine Corps.


Semper Fi!

(In honor of our fellow Marines today, and in advance of honoring Veterans from all Service Branches tomorrow, at sunrise, we respectfully lowered, righted, and returned our flag to full mast. It is a beautiful day here in Tennessee, and our flag is waving briskly in the fall winds, a reminder of all that is still good and right with America.)

VETERANS DAY -- 11 NOVEMBER 2008

Tomorrow is Veterans Day.

We encourage all Patriots to set aside time and reflect on the sacrifice of our Patriot veterans and those serving today, and honor them accordingly.

On November 11, 1921, an unknown American soldier from World War I was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, in recognition of WWI veterans and in conjunction with the timing of cessation of hostilities at 11 a.m., November 11, 1918 (the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month). President Warren Harding requested that: "All ... citizens ... indulge in a period of silent thanks to God for these ... valorous lives and of supplication for His Divine mercy ... on our beloved country." Inscribed on the Tomb are the words: "Here lies in honored glory an American soldier know but to God." The day became known as "Armistice Day." In 1954, Congress, wanting to recognize the sacrifice of veterans since WWI, proposed to change Armistice Day to Veterans Day in their honor. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, former Supreme Commander in WWII, signed the legislation.

To honor those veterans who sacrificed all, an Army honor guard from the 3d U.S. Infantry (The Old Guard) keeps day and night vigil at Arlington. At 11 a.m. Tuesday, a combined color guard representing all military service branches executes "Present Arms" at the tomb for the laying of a wreath by the president, followed by "Taps."

More than a million Patriots stand ready, or are actively defending our nation today. These men and women were not drafted into service, but volunteered to serve.

Every Friday, in our Profiles in Valor section, we tell the stories of some of these volunteers from around the nation.

Today, we include some brief remarks from four uniformed Patriots who call our local community home -- bright young people who could have pursued promising careers in the private sector, like many of their peers, but who chose a higher calling of service to our great nation. Mr. Alexander asked each of them for brief comment about that calling.

MD, 2nd Lieutenant, USMC. Graduate, Harvard University

"My faith compels me to invest my life in some form of service to others. As a student at Harvard, I became increasingly aware of the sacrifices being made by Americans of my generation overseas. While we debated the merits of policy decisions, they lived them out, putting their lives on the line for our country. I had always been proud of my father and grandfathers for their military service in their generations' wars. My father served as a Marine machine gunner in Vietnam, both of my grandfathers served during WWII as did my great-grandfathers in WWI. I felt like I had a duty to do my part now. I joined the Marines because I wanted to serve as close to the point of impact as I could, where leadership and sacrifice make the greatest difference. Whether in the deserts of Iraq or the schools, churches and offices here at home, I believe that we are all called to give of ourselves in service to others."

DK, Lieutenant JG, USN. Graduate, United States Naval Academy

"The past two weeks have been the toughest in flight school -- three check rides so that I could be instrument and solo qualified in the helicopter. I can't believe I get paid to fly and am looking forward to my real job out to the fleet. Leadership involves constantly analyzing yourself and a willingness to constantly better yourself, not for your own benefit but for those who work for you. All of the young sailors, marines, aircrew who serve in our military have CHOSEN to serve. I want to work with these men and women and give them opportunities to reach their goals and exceed the expectations (or lack of expectations) that their families or friends or society has set before them. I get the chance to make a difference in their lives -- I get to trust them with my life -- and I get to serve not above them but beside them for a common cause. I have found that the best military leaders are those that have a strong faith. So many have seen the worst and the best of mankind and they just have no other option but to trust God and keep going."

RN, Captain, USA. Graduate, Princeton University

"I came home and told my parents I kind of felt like something was missing from my college career, and signed up in 2001. If I come back limbless or dead, that's my fate, but I worry about it happening to my guys. You live with them, you train with them, you eat with them, you dig fighting positions with them, you share misery with them, learn about their families and their girlfriends and their dreams and hopes, and they're good men, deserving of a wonderful future, and you want them to have that future. It has been very rewarding to see the improvements here in the last two years. We were the last pre-surge battalion to redeploy and the improvements have been dramatic. I have had the pleasure to get to know many Iraqis very well. Soldiers patrolling heavily populated urban areas, such as our current area of operations, spend a great deal of time getting to know shop owners, local leaders and ordinary citizens. We are routinely invited into homes for Chai tea and food. There is certainly some animosity among some Iraqis, but most that I have encountered appreciate our reconstruction projects and efforts to support the local governments and their desires in the community."

DW, Ensign, USN. Graduate, United States Naval Academy

"While there are a multitude of convictions that led me into Naval Aviation (including the events of 9/11), there is one that stands out. I'll try to state it simply: the defense of our nation is a necessary task, and that task demands service and sacrifice from individuals who are both willing and able to do the jobs that are required of them. I was not comfortable sitting idly by and trusting that someone else will do that job instead. I am a strong believer in putting one's skills to use in the best manner possible, and in my case I feel like my current occupation is the one I am best suited for -- both as a naval officer and a tactical jet pilot. I find myself obligated to another eight years of service. Fortunately, I'm enjoying every day of it, and I find it easy to sleep at night with a sense of accomplishment and pride in what I am doing and why I'm doing it."

Clearly there is a common theme reflected in the comments from these four service personnel. They are motivated to serve a cause bigger than themselves. They put their country, and those under their commands, first. They have taken an oath to defend our Constitution not as a formality, but with their lives.

John Stuart Mill wrote, "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

We are concerned that the next few years will be characterized by political leadership exemplifying precisely the character deficit that Mill describes.

We remain the proud and the free because American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coastguardsmen have stood bravely in harm's way, and remain on post today. For this, we, the American People, offer our heartfelt gratitude and thanks.

THE GIPPER

"It's been my responsibility, my duty and very much my honor to serve as Commander in Chief of this nation's Armed Forces these past eight years. That is the most sacred, most important ask of the Presidency. Since our nation's founding, the primary obligation of the national government has been the common defense of these United States. But as I have sought to perform this sacred task as best I could, I have done so with the knowledge that my role in this day-to-day-to-day effort, from sunrise to sunrise, every moment of every hour of every day of every year, is a glancing one compared to yours. ... But it's not just your fellow Americans who owe you a debt. No, I believe many more do, for I believe that military service in the Armed Forces of the United States is a profound form of service to all humankind. You stand engaged in an effort to keep America safe at home, to protect our allies and interests abroad, to keep the seas and the skies free of threat. Just as America stands as an example to the world of the inestimable benefits of freedom and democracy, so too an America with the capacity to project her power for the purpose of protecting and expanding freedom and democracy abroad benefits the suffering people of the world." --Ronald Reagan

FOR THE RECORD

"To be sure, the American people have handed power over to the Democrats. But today there is a categorical difference between what Republicans stand for and the principles of individual freedom. Parties are all about getting people elected to political office; and the practice of politics too often takes the form of professional juvenile delinquency: short-sighted and self-centered. This was certainly true of the Bush presidency. Too often the policy agenda was determined by short-sighted political considerations and an abiding fear that the public simply would not understand limited government and expanded individual freedoms. How else do we explain 'compassionate conservatism,' No Child Left Behind, the Medicare drug benefit and the most dramatic growth in federal spending since LBJ's Great Society? ... Ronald Reagan, for example, held an unshakably positive vision of American capitalism. He didn't feel a need to qualify the meaning of his conservatism. He understood that big government was cruel and uncaring of individual aspirations. Small government conservatism was, by definition, compassionate -- offering every American a way up to self-determination and economic prosperity. Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006 because voters no longer saw Republicans as the party of limited government. They have since rejected virtually every opportunity to recapture this identity. But their failure to do so must not be misconstrued as a rejection of principles of individual liberty by the American people. The evidence suggests we are still a nation of pocketbook conservatives most happy when government has enough respect to leave us alone and to mind its own business. The worrisome question is whether either political party understands this." --former House Majority Leader Dick Armey

OPINION IN BRIEF

"Conservatism is not in trouble -- the Republican Party is. Too many of its leaders at the ballot box or in its conservative journals have lost sight of the blindingly obvious: Ronald Reagan was not just a winning personality whose time has come and gone. He was in fact the living embodiment of a set of timeless principles that are not only the gravity of this political world we live in but its oxygen as well. To borrow his once famous query: If not now, when? If not us, who?" --Jeffrey Lord

GOVERNMENT

"There are 15 cabinet departments, nine of which control various aspects of the U.S. economy. They are the Departments of: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Education, Energy, Labor, Agriculture, Commerce, and Interior. In addition, there is the alphabet soup cluster of federal agencies such as: the IRS, the FRB and FDIC, the EPA, FDA, SEC, CFTC, NLRB, FTC, FCC, FERC, FEMA, FAA, CAA, INS, OHSA, CPSC, NHTSA, EEOC, BATF, DEA, NIH, and NASA. Here's my question to you: Can one be sane and at the same time hold that ours is an unregulated laissez-faire economy? Better yet, tell me what a businessman, or for that matter you, can do that does not involve some kind of government regulation. A businessman must seek government approval for the minutest detail of his operation or face the wrath of some government agency, whether it's at the federal, state or local level. Just about everything we buy or use has some kind of government dictate involved whether it's package labeling, how many gallons of water to flush toilets or what pharmaceuticals can be prescribed. You say, 'Williams, there's a reason for this government control.' Yes, there's a reason for everything but that does not change the fact that there is massive government control over our economy." --Walter E. Williams

POLITICAL FUTURES

"Barack Obama is given to grandiosity such as the famous Greek columns in a Denver stadium. Among the Obama supporters who made his case to me the past year, I doubt many would say this level of grandiosity was what they had in mind amid constant assurance that he is a moderate, pragmatic man. Mr. Obama's messianism may be setting him up for a fall. It might make sense between now and his Inaugural Address for the president-elect to lower his flight path. Among the images evoked by Greek columns is the myth of Icarus. The Founding Fathers' idea of 'change' was in fact more modest than Mr. Obama's, a reality worth pondering lest he take his followers on a ride toward the sun." --Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Henninger

RE: THE LEFT

"This election was about one thing and one thing only: Americans' puerile need for unity through self-congratulatory, cathartic membership in a broad, transformative political movement. For eight years, Americans have been engaged in hostile politics. And after eight years, Americans were sick of it. That isn't to America's credit. Hostile politics -- hard-fought political conflict over the issues that matter -- is not a bad thing. It is precisely the sort of messy republicanism the founders embraced. Early elections were replete with mudslinging, character assassination, brawls and scandals. They were also replete with some of the most substantive debate on policy ever put before mankind. Apparently, we're no longer interested in the dirty business of politics. We'd rather feel ourselves part of a high-minded movement. Not the sort of movement that espouses particular policies -- not the antiwar movement, or the pro-life movement -- those movements are too divisive. We want to be part of a movement that is solely about us. Barack Obama was the vessel for that movement." --Ben Shapiro

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

"A friend referred me to The Patriot the other day as I was whining about the TOTAL ABSENCE of any discussion of or adherence to the U.S. Constitution anymore. So I subscribed online and I have begun to get your daily Founders Quotes. It's like manna from heaven. And then I got your regular editions -- more manna from heaven! I have felt SO ALONE in my political beliefs for SO LONG. God bless you -- I mean REALLY bless you -- for the wonderful work you are doing. You have brought great hope to my weary heart." --Evansville, Minnesota

"Patriots, I was raised by a very liberal parents in Berkley, California. Until I was in my early twenties I believed just like them, 'government is our savior.' As a young adult, examining my life, I found a Patriot inside, a conservative who had previously been conned by the California experience. Thank you for holding on to the true values of our great country. I found The Patriot Post by accident a couple of years ago and found it well-reasoned commentary. It has been like a rock for me." --Southfield, Michigan

THE LAST WORD

"There is no time to lick wounds, point fingers, and wallow in post-election mud. I'm getting a lot of moan-y, sad-face 'What do we do now, Michelle?' e-mails. What do we do now? We do what we've always done. We stand up for our principles, as we always have -- through Democrat administrations and Republican administrations, in bear markets or bull markets, in peacetime and wartime. We stay positive and focused. We keep the faith. We do not apologize for our beliefs. We do not re-brand them, re-form them, or relinquish them. We defend them. We pay respect to the office of the presidency. We count our blessings and recommit ourselves to our constitutional republic. We gird our loins, to borrow a phrase from our Vice President-elect. We lock and load our ideological ammunition. We fight." --Michelle Malkin

Veritas vos Liberabit -- Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot's editors and staff.

Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world, and for their families -- especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who granted their lives in defense of American liberty.