I asked your Grandma Loomer once, Brendan, how awful it must have been to get married in Quantico, Virginia on a weekend pass, on Christmas Eve, no less, with two strangers for witnesses. And then to take the train back to Wisconsin alone to await the time when Grandpa Loomer would be commissioned an officer. To spend the first four years of that marriage only occasionally seeing Grandpa, who was most of those years in a theatre of war, putting himself in harm’s way trying to secure beachheads and kill enemy soldiers. To start a family after three years apart because, the way the war was going, they might have to wait another ten years to do so. And to raise their baby all alone for the first 8 months of her life, also because of the war. Throughout my childhood I used to find little 2″x2 1/2″ black and white snapshots of her in short shorts, with a message of “oh, those knees!” penciled in on the back. And little snapshots of her holding their baby. Those short shorts were my parents’ conjugal relations for three and a half years. The baby pictures were family life for my father, who was thousands of miles away. Grandma would answer, smiling, “Oh, everybody was doing it.”
The last few years of her life you will remember the times we took her to Newington’s Memorial Day parades. She got to watch the Iwo Jima Marines march by and she smiled then too. Those were days she really enjoyed. She wouldn’t think this way, but for her and for Grandpa, freedom wasn’t free. For them, everybody was doing it.
We were watching the fireworks from Coors Field on the third and one of our friends whips out his iphone and starts playing, “America! F*** yeah!” It was pretty fabulous.
Considering the going rate for DUI is a $5,000 retainer, freedom sure ain’t free.
Not to be a buzzkill, but the “Freedom isn’t Free” bumper sticker slogan is simplistic, inaccurate and needs to be banned.
Freedom is an absence of undue restrictions and an opportunity to exercise one’s rights and powers. It emphasizes the opportunity given for the exercise of one’s rights, powers, desires.
Soldiers rarely fight for this. Instead, they fight for political/philosophical reasons that are often for someone else’s interest. Iraq is a good example, no one in the U.S. will lose their “opportunity to exercise their rights” nor is it clear that any Iraq will gain the ability to exercise their rights. Yet the soldiers fight and die. They do this not for freedom, but for political and philosophical reasons.
What do soldiers pay for? Usually, they pay to allow another group to govern or political system. That is a far cry from “freedom.” Soldiers return from war and live the same way they did before the war (except for all the psychological disorders).
Even in the Revolutionary war, many Colonists considered themselves free. It was a political/philosophical battle over who should regulate certain matters (i.e. tax). Only a few years after winning “freedom” the Alien and Sedition acts were passed by the US. The people’s “freedom” was only changed by degree under the US system vis-a-vis the English. Despite prevailing over the despotic English, can you really argue that the U.S. has more freedom than the English?
The reason America has freedom is not due to soldiers paying a price. It is due to many brave individuals who were willing to risk everything (home, comfort, stability) to settle an UNGOVERNED land. The price of freedom is being willing to forgo comfort of society and rely on your own abilities.
One exception is if your home is invaded by an occupying force. In that case, fighting is necessary to preserve freedom.
July 4th, 2007 at 6:38:55 pm
Here I’m trying to be all serious, and all I can think is, “…no, there’s a hefty f***in’ fee.” Damn you, Trey Parker and Matt Stone!! :)
July 4th, 2007 at 7:53:30 pm
It costs a Buck-oh-five.
July 4th, 2007 at 8:21:54 pm
I asked your Grandma Loomer once, Brendan, how awful it must have been to get married in Quantico, Virginia on a weekend pass, on Christmas Eve, no less, with two strangers for witnesses. And then to take the train back to Wisconsin alone to await the time when Grandpa Loomer would be commissioned an officer. To spend the first four years of that marriage only occasionally seeing Grandpa, who was most of those years in a theatre of war, putting himself in harm’s way trying to secure beachheads and kill enemy soldiers. To start a family after three years apart because, the way the war was going, they might have to wait another ten years to do so. And to raise their baby all alone for the first 8 months of her life, also because of the war. Throughout my childhood I used to find little 2″x2 1/2″ black and white snapshots of her in short shorts, with a message of “oh, those knees!” penciled in on the back. And little snapshots of her holding their baby. Those short shorts were my parents’ conjugal relations for three and a half years. The baby pictures were family life for my father, who was thousands of miles away. Grandma would answer, smiling, “Oh, everybody was doing it.”
The last few years of her life you will remember the times we took her to Newington’s Memorial Day parades. She got to watch the Iwo Jima Marines march by and she smiled then too. Those were days she really enjoyed. She wouldn’t think this way, but for her and for Grandpa, freedom wasn’t free. For them, everybody was doing it.
July 5th, 2007 at 12:53:20 pm
We were watching the fireworks from Coors Field on the third and one of our friends whips out his iphone and starts playing, “America! F*** yeah!” It was pretty fabulous.
July 5th, 2007 at 1:27:55 pm
Considering the going rate for DUI is a $5,000 retainer, freedom sure ain’t free.
Not to be a buzzkill, but the “Freedom isn’t Free” bumper sticker slogan is simplistic, inaccurate and needs to be banned.
Freedom is an absence of undue restrictions and an opportunity to exercise one’s rights and powers. It emphasizes the opportunity given for the exercise of one’s rights, powers, desires.
Soldiers rarely fight for this. Instead, they fight for political/philosophical reasons that are often for someone else’s interest. Iraq is a good example, no one in the U.S. will lose their “opportunity to exercise their rights” nor is it clear that any Iraq will gain the ability to exercise their rights. Yet the soldiers fight and die. They do this not for freedom, but for political and philosophical reasons.
What do soldiers pay for? Usually, they pay to allow another group to govern or political system. That is a far cry from “freedom.” Soldiers return from war and live the same way they did before the war (except for all the psychological disorders).
Even in the Revolutionary war, many Colonists considered themselves free. It was a political/philosophical battle over who should regulate certain matters (i.e. tax). Only a few years after winning “freedom” the Alien and Sedition acts were passed by the US. The people’s “freedom” was only changed by degree under the US system vis-a-vis the English. Despite prevailing over the despotic English, can you really argue that the U.S. has more freedom than the English?
The reason America has freedom is not due to soldiers paying a price. It is due to many brave individuals who were willing to risk everything (home, comfort, stability) to settle an UNGOVERNED land. The price of freedom is being willing to forgo comfort of society and rely on your own abilities.
One exception is if your home is invaded by an occupying force. In that case, fighting is necessary to preserve freedom.
July 5th, 2007 at 2:00:00 pm
Not to be a buzzkill
Too late.
July 5th, 2007 at 9:07:27 pm
Leanna, thanks, that was cool.
July 5th, 2007 at 9:42:49 pm
Yes, Leanna, that was great!