(Submitted by an IL Eagle, from the Gathering of Eagles website)

I walked among the falling snowflakes today and met a soldier at Valley Forge. He held his musket in his bloody hands; he stood barefoot in the snow, starved from a lack of food, wounded from months of battle and emotionally scarred from the eternity away from his family-surrounded by nothing but death, carnage, and war.

He stood tough before me, with a bright fire in his eyes and the air of victory on his breath. He looked angered and disgusted as he said these words to me,

• I gave you a birthright of freedom born in the Constitution and now your children graduate too illiterate to read it.
• I fought in the snow, barefoot, to give you the freedom to vote; yet you stay home if it rains.
• I left my family destitute to give you the freedom of speech; yet you remain silent on crucial issues because it might be bad for business.
• I orphaned my children to give you a government to serve you; yet it has stolen democracy from the people.
• How easily you forget! It is the soldier not the reporter who gives you freedom of the press.
• It is the soldier not the poet who gives you the freedom of speech.
• It is the soldier not the campus organizer who allows you to demonstrate.
• It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves the flag, and whose coffin is draped with the flag that allows the protestor to burn the flag!!
• How easily you forget! The names of those who stood beside me, who have come after me, who are coming to me now.
• It is the soldier, who in his duty and honor, gives you the freedom to be free!

He glared at me for a moment or two, while his breath hastened to ease; A single tear slid down my cheek and his heart began to bleed. I walked slowly up to him and placed my hand upon his wound. His blood drenched my skin and  I shook with tears and guilt while quietly he whispered, “Never forget!”