Editor,
I just wanted to relay my personal experience this last Saturday at the funeral service for Sgt. Corey Dan of Norway who was killed in Iraq.
As a member of the Patriot Guard Riders, an organization whose mission is to show our sincere respect for our fallen heroes, their families and their communities and to shield the mourning family and friends from interruptions created by any protestor or group of protestors, we attended as invited guests of the family.
Members provide an often needed buffer, a human wall if you will, between the grieving families and people who protest during what is often a family’s hardest hour.
The tremendous turnout of the Patriot Guard Riders and the large number of community members who came and joined us in this “mission” were a great example to my 13-year-old son Ian, who attended the proceedings with me.
It is a great lesson in community to be a part of so somber and so moving a tribute to one of our neighbors, who had volunteered to be on the front line in the global war on terror.
I know that my son and I came away with a deepened respect for the people who serve and a firm pride in country and community as well as a feeling we were able to, in a small way, comfort those who must go on. This is a part of what I explain to my children as part of “The American Experience.”
What I call The Dark Side of the American Experience, is the reason we have joined with over 21,000 Americans in the PGR. I would like to explain to you, in the same way and manner that I have explained to my 13- and 10-year-old children why, I believe, we have to be part of this movement. As a Christian family, we believe that it is our duty to be an active and productive part of our community. We also believe that the United States, the Constitution, the Rule of Law and our own communities are all things worth defending, working to preserve, and ultimately, passing on to future generations a little better than we found them.
There have always been people who would, either from without or within, tear down the freedoms, liberty and the very fabric of our society, using whatever means they deem necessary, to achieve their goals. In this case, the people who would try to tear us down as a society, call themselves members of a church. They attend the funerals of fallen American heroes and use tactics that are less than acceptable to members of decent society. In the past they have tied American flags to their ankles and dragged them through the mud, spat and blew their noses on the flag. They’ve carried hateful signs and sing perverted versions of American patriotic songs all in an attempt to provoke and disrupt. As members of the PGR we stand, through strictly legal and non-violent means, as a human wall with American flags, between the offensive protesters and the soldier’s family.
As part of our free society they have a right to protest, I tell my children, but we also have a right and the duty to stand as Americans and defend what Sgt. Corey Dan died for. Eternal Vigilance, I tell my children, is the price of liberty.
Rep. Richard M. Cebra
Casco, Naples and Poland
Send questions/comments to the editors.
