Robert Teesdale
New member
To All:
I recently saw The Patriot with my wife. Those of you who've seen it will know what I'm talking about when I say it's overwhelming... and as a father, it was both painful and inspiring at the same time.
I wrote an essay for my site about this sort of thing - and I thought I'd provide it here for folks to read. If you like it, there's more of these in the Comments section of my site. The link's at the bottom of this post.
BLOOD OF SONS
What price our freedom? What buying power the blood of our sons?
Thomas Jefferson used to say that the tree of liberty requires occasional watering with the blood of patriots and tyrants. His acknowledgement of the human, and so very personal, cost of our birthrights is an always timely - and distinctly appropriate one.
It is a hard choice, and a misery once made.
I can remember with an aching love the first cry my son made when he came into the world. A tiny and shuddering voice shocked at the amazement of life, and desperate in its wish for comprehension.
I never want to know that his last cry was one of agony in the churning mud, dying in a storm of flying steel and thundering armor as it smashes its way across the land.
When I return to my home at the end of the day, and feel his child's arms clamped about his father's neck and his little heart smashing against my chest - I feel even more strongly a determination to protect him from harm; to provide him with safety; and to preserve the nation of freedom into which he was born.
But I will be gone, one day.
And the cruel and unforgiving task of keeping our nation alive will fall to him. On his shoulders will rest the miserable hope of billions.
For he is an American.
I cannot preserve my child from the angry crafts of men. The shriek of artillery and the chatter of mechanized death are out there, stalking the world with a grim and grotesque laughter.
Dare I shrink from his education? From teaching him of not merely the value and joy of life, but also the dearest and most precious condition for its worth?
He must, one day, become a man. And bear the incalculable burden of human power, human duty, and human recognition of the most priceless gift any God has ever given us:
The right to be free.
It may cost him, in my time, the life of his father. It may, one day, cost him his own life and the end of happiness for his loving mother. His name, one day, may be etched into yet another wall of marble stained with the tears of still-living friends.
And though the agony of this price is so closely felt; and though its payment would shatter my world forever and drown my existence in sorrow - it is the only possibility, and the only choice that can with integrity and justice be made.
For the alternative is as unforgivable as it is unacceptable.
The words of Winston Churchill are as poignantly real today as they were fifty-odd years ago, as the darkest time mankind has known spread its hands of death across the world:
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
The blood of our sons is the last and best sacrifice our nation and our People can make. Never forget those who have paid it, and those who stand ready to receive the bill.
They belong to all of us.
Best regards,
Robert Teesdale
robert_teesdale@yahoo.com
http://www.teesdale.com
[This message has been edited by Robert Teesdale (edited July 30, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Robert Teesdale (edited July 30, 2000).]
I recently saw The Patriot with my wife. Those of you who've seen it will know what I'm talking about when I say it's overwhelming... and as a father, it was both painful and inspiring at the same time.
I wrote an essay for my site about this sort of thing - and I thought I'd provide it here for folks to read. If you like it, there's more of these in the Comments section of my site. The link's at the bottom of this post.
BLOOD OF SONS
What price our freedom? What buying power the blood of our sons?
Thomas Jefferson used to say that the tree of liberty requires occasional watering with the blood of patriots and tyrants. His acknowledgement of the human, and so very personal, cost of our birthrights is an always timely - and distinctly appropriate one.
It is a hard choice, and a misery once made.
I can remember with an aching love the first cry my son made when he came into the world. A tiny and shuddering voice shocked at the amazement of life, and desperate in its wish for comprehension.
I never want to know that his last cry was one of agony in the churning mud, dying in a storm of flying steel and thundering armor as it smashes its way across the land.
When I return to my home at the end of the day, and feel his child's arms clamped about his father's neck and his little heart smashing against my chest - I feel even more strongly a determination to protect him from harm; to provide him with safety; and to preserve the nation of freedom into which he was born.
But I will be gone, one day.
And the cruel and unforgiving task of keeping our nation alive will fall to him. On his shoulders will rest the miserable hope of billions.
For he is an American.
I cannot preserve my child from the angry crafts of men. The shriek of artillery and the chatter of mechanized death are out there, stalking the world with a grim and grotesque laughter.
Dare I shrink from his education? From teaching him of not merely the value and joy of life, but also the dearest and most precious condition for its worth?
He must, one day, become a man. And bear the incalculable burden of human power, human duty, and human recognition of the most priceless gift any God has ever given us:
The right to be free.
It may cost him, in my time, the life of his father. It may, one day, cost him his own life and the end of happiness for his loving mother. His name, one day, may be etched into yet another wall of marble stained with the tears of still-living friends.
And though the agony of this price is so closely felt; and though its payment would shatter my world forever and drown my existence in sorrow - it is the only possibility, and the only choice that can with integrity and justice be made.
For the alternative is as unforgivable as it is unacceptable.
The words of Winston Churchill are as poignantly real today as they were fifty-odd years ago, as the darkest time mankind has known spread its hands of death across the world:
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
The blood of our sons is the last and best sacrifice our nation and our People can make. Never forget those who have paid it, and those who stand ready to receive the bill.
They belong to all of us.
Best regards,
Robert Teesdale
robert_teesdale@yahoo.com
http://www.teesdale.com
[This message has been edited by Robert Teesdale (edited July 30, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Robert Teesdale (edited July 30, 2000).]