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Originally Posted by Woodsy
Amazing... great points of view!
We as humans were blessed with the greaest gift.... individual choice! Slowly but surely our individual choice is being taken away piece by piece... and we let it happen.
Woodsy
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You're right Woodsy, and you just happened to push my "hot" button, but let me explain why.
I was at an air show some years ago and they had a B-17 that you could take a tour of. As I exited the aircraft I saw a photograph of a squadron of B-17s and one of the planes was falling out of formation, inverted, and smoking badly. As I looked at this photograph an older gentleman approached me and informed me that the plane that was falling out of formation had been his aircraft and that it had just been shot down over Austria. He and the rest of the crew had bailed out and had survived but had spent the remainder of WWII in a Nazi POW camp. I shook his hand and thanked him for the sacrifice that he and so many others had made protecting our country. What he revealed to me next saddened me greatly. He told me that if I really appreciated the sacrifice of veterans I would treat the freedom and liberty that they all fought and died for with more respect. To quote him, "We didn't fight and die to preserve the particular brand of freedom that we are forced to live with today. If you get on a motorcycle you HAVE to wear a helmet... if you get in a car you HAVE to wear a seatbelt... even your dog has to be licensed and on a leash at all times. If you really appreciate the sacrifices that were made to protect freedom you would be putting up more of a stink every time the government tried to take some of it away."
I tried to inform him that I share his oppinion of government intrusion into my life and hopefully I made him understand that there are those of us out there that not only don't NEED the governemt running our lives, but also don't even WANT the government to run them.
So there it is, the opinion of a man who put it all on the line to protect our country and the ideals that it was founded on. I wonder how many other veterans, especially those of the "greatest generation" feel the same way?
