On Memorial Day 2023, we turn our minds to our war dead – those who sacrificed everything for their country, their values, and their loved ones. One author has written:

“America was born in blood. America suckled on blood. America gorged on blood and grew into a giant, and America will drown in blood” (Thomas W. Chittum, Civil War Two: The Coming Breakup of America, 1). 

Traditionally, Americans have loved peace. We have disdained conquest. We have championed the rights of oppressed peoples and nations and the cause of Independence. However, our defense of our principles, our peace, and our People has often led us to war with its abhorrent carnage, misery, and bloodletting. We have also fought unjust wars of aggression that were shameful and an affront to God. 

Not every soldier who has ever fought or died is a hero. Not every one has been an exemplary person who served with honor. They don’t all deserve our unwavering respect simply for wearing the uniform or dying on the field of battle. However, the majority of American servicemen who have lost their lives have been sincere people who believed, wrong or right, that they were fighting for a higher cause that was just, noble, and good. 

Those who have sincerely believed in the correctness of their cause, who served in an upright and honorable manner in God’s eyes, and who gave their lives doing what they truly thought would liberate or bless other peoples, deserve our honor and respect. Those honorable dead who willingly fought for God and country are the ones I honor today. 

Such were the men who fought the British monarchists and traitors for Independence at Lexington and Concord, Bunker Hill and Trenton, Kings Mountain and Yorktown. Such were the men who demolished the British invaders with General Jackson in New Orleans. Such were the soldiers and militiamen who ended the Indian wars against white settlers and Pioneers. Such were the Confederate warriors who defended their states against Union invasion. Such were the men of the Alamo who warred against Santa Anna and his Mexican aggressors. And on the list goes. 

Shortly after Independence had been declared in 1776, Samuel Adams, the Father of the Revolution, gave a rousing speech where he reminded his countrymen of the stakes of the war and the sacrifices that had already been made to secure national sovereignty. He cried: 

“Courage, then, my countrymen; our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. Dismissing, therefore, the justice of our cause as incontestable, the only question is, What is best for us to pursue in our present circumstances? . . . . 

“We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances. There are instances of, I would say, an almost astonishing providence in our favor; our success has staggered our enemies, and almost given faith to infidels; so we may truly say it is not our own arm which has saved us. 

“The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world. For can we ever expect more unanimity and a better preparation for defense; more infatuation of counsel among our enemies, and more valor and zeal among ourselves? The same force and resistance which are sufficient to procure us our liberties will secure us a glorious independence and support us in the dignity of free imperial States. We can not suppose that our opposition has made a corrupt and dissipated nation more friendly to America, or created in them a greater respect for the rights of mankind. We can therefore expect a restoration and establishment of our privileges, and a compensation for the injuries we have received from their want of power, from their fears, and not from their virtues. The unanimity and valor which will effect an honorable peace can render a future contest for our liberties unnecessary. He who has strength to chain down the wolf is a madman if he let him loose without drawing his teeth and paring his nails. . . . 

“. . . When the spirit of liberty, which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms, is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any should yet remain among us, remember that a [Joseph] Warren and [Richard] Montgomery are numbered among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plow, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen! . . . . 

“We have no other alternative than independence, or the most ignominious and galling servitude. The legions of our enemies thicken on our plains; desolation and death mark their bloody career, while the mangled corpses of our countrymen seem to cry out to us as a voice from heaven. 

“Our Union is now complete; our Constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties: We may justly address you as the decemviri did the Romans, and say: “Nothing that we propose can pass into a law without your consent. Be yourselves, O Americans, the authors of those laws on which your happiness depends.” 

“You have now in the field armies sufficient to repel the whole force of your enemies and their base and mercenary auxiliaries. The hearts of your soldiers beat high with the spirit of freedom; they are animated with the justice of their cause, and while they grasp their swords can look up to Heaven for assistance. Your adversaries are composed of wretches who laugh at the rights of humanity, who turn religion into derision, and would, for higher wages, direct their swords against their leaders or their country. Go on, then, in your generous enterprise with gratitude to Heaven for past success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part I ask no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common glory. If I have a wish dearer to my soul than that my ashes may be mingled with those of a Warren and Montgomery, it is that these American States may never cease to be free and independent” (Samuel Adams, Speech, August 1, 1776). 

If we wish to continue as free states in this mighty confederacy called the United States, we must remember our fallen warriors. We must remember why they fought. We must remember the values and principles they held so dearly that they were willing to fight, bleed, and die to defend. We must remember their sacrifices – their mangled bodies and corpses. More importantly, we must resolve to make the same ultimate sacrifice for our Faith, Families, and Freedom that they made when the time comes. 

The blood of our fallen heroes nourished the American soil. From that fertile ground grew a Liberty tree whose branches have provided more people with the cool shade of Freedom than any Liberty tree ever has. Today, however, many of the branches have withered, the leaves have fallen, and the soil is parched. 

After Shay’s Rebellion, Thomas Jefferson made an intriguing remark: 

“[G]od forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. the people cannot be all, & always, well informed. the part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive; if they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. we have had 13. states independant 11. years. there has been one rebellion. that comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. what country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure” (Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787). 

Rebellion to tyrants is the American tradition because rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. God is the Founding Father of America. He required His own Son Jesus Christ to sacrifice for mankind and to lay down His life for those who would repent and follow Him. He redeemed America by the shedding of the blood of her valiant patriots. He will yet preserve America from her current distress through the shedding of her patriotic blood. 

Sometimes, doing what is right requires daunting sacrifice. It requires enduring hardship, persecution, trials, false accusations, tribunals, enemy armies, tyrannical governments, enraged mobs, and the scorn of friends. But if it’s right, the only course of action that is honorable is to walk through the fire. If we want the Liberty tree to flourish and cover our children in the cool shade of its lush branches, then we must refresh it with the blood of patriots and tyrants. 

Tyrants are a dime a dozen; patriots are rarer. Be a patriot. Be a freeman. Be a warrior for truth and light. There’s so much to do! There’s a war to win. There’s Freedom to regain. There’s a country to save. There’s immortal glory to gain through our sacrifices and toil. 

As we now contemplate the mangled bodies of our war dead who fought and died for their American principles – for their Faith, Families, Freedom – and honor their bravery, future generations will honor us if we stand up boldly, fight manfully, and sacrifice to restore the Republic. Some of us may die, some of us may live; but the outcome will be Liberty! If we die, what better cause is there to die for? If we live, what better action to have taken part in than the reestablishment of Freedom? And, if we live to see the fruits of our labor, we will have the privilege to honor those who did not, but whose blood sanctified our free nation and ensured a bountiful harvest of Liberty. 

Today, the best way to honor our dead is to defend what they died defending – their Faith in Christ who redeemed them, their moral values, their virtue, their honor, their traditional Families, their sovereignty, their rule of law, their Constitution, and their Freedom. John Adams highlighted this great truth when he reflected: 

“Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it” (John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 26, 1777). 

Our war dead are no doubt rolling in their graves watching Americans squander the Freedom they died for. They no doubt burn with regret and righteous fury watching us elect tyrants, allow despots to steal elections, and to generally sit by silently as a wicked cabal rides roughshod over us. They doubtless mourn for America – the only bastion of Liberty on planet earth. 

Do we truly honor our dead if we continue to vote for the same political parties that have sold out our rights and have presided over our demise? Do we respect or spit upon their memory if we let our rights of free speech, association, religious worship, self-defense, jury trial, state sovereignty, and private property, to name a few, be stripped from us? In short, do we really honor our fallen heroes if we let fall the constitutional form of government, and, with it, the God-given natural rights it secures? 

American, you must be better. Don’t place flowers on graves or wave the flag or post flowery messages memorializing spilled American blood if you aren’t man enough to publicly, vociferously, and literally fight for Freedom. To do so is hypocrisy and an insult to their memory. The only true memorial to our fallen warriors is to uphold, defend, and perpetuate the Faith, Families, and Freedom they secured with their noble blood. 

Zack Strong, 
May 29, 2023