Where Houston
lives |
32 Specific Reasons for
Memorial Day Remembrance
by Michael Thornton,
SEAL, LT, US NAVY, Ret.
First published Monday, May 25, 1998,
in the Houston Chronicle
(W/Capt. Eric H. May, Ghost Writer)
 HERE
are 32 specific reasons that Memorial Day makes me remember the patriots
who fell in our nation's wars. You can find all of them and 60,000
others on the Wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. They
are the names of the 32 comrades I lost in my four tours of duty as
a SEAL in Vietnam. Many Americans have similar reasons for remembrance,
having known someone who died so that our freedoms could live.
We Americans don't leave our dead on the
battlefield. We don't shut put the memory of their lives or
sacrifice. We don't forget.
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In
many Houston homes a cherished photograph sits in a place of honor,
showing the ever-young image of a uniformed soldier, sailor or Marine,
standing with an American flag in the background. Their proud, ambitious
expressions show that every one of them hoped to live but was willing
to die.
In
every Houston community neighbors remember a local young man or woman
who made the ultimate sacrifice. Just the other night, a friend confided
to me that he still remembered seeing the Medal of Honor, our nations
highest military decoration, encased in his high school library. It
had been received posthumously by a classmate who had leapt on a grenade
in Vietnam, absorbing the shrapnel with his body to save his buddies.
Knowing
a person who has died in service reminds us that they were human.
They were heroes, but they weren't made of marble, didn't eat nails
and didn't breathe fire. They laughed at jokes, dreamed of the future
and enjoyed the pleasures of life, just as we do. They were a part
of us.
In
1986 I was a pallbearer for the earthly remains of ths Vietnam-era
soldier, known but to God, whom we interred at the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. It seemed to me then that
the young man we buried had suffered a fate as hard as death itself:
anonymity. The belief that we will be remembered after death is one
of the thoughts that brings us happiness in life.
The
disinterment just days ago of that unknown soldier was an occasion
of happiness for me, because it holds forth the possibility of his
identification. If that happens, people will engrave his name on the
Wall, and the press will show his photograph and report the details
of his life. He will be remembered.
Perhaps
the soon-to-be-known soldier is doing one last service for his nation
by reminding us of something: the better part of our national character.
We Americans don't leave our dead on the battlefield. We don't shut
out the memory of their lives or sacrifice. We don’t forget.
These
are the thoughts I'll be thinking this Memorial Day as I enjoy family
and friends, food, drinks, music and the freedom that makes the United
States worth dying for. And all 32 of my friends on the Wall would
approve heartily. They hated a bad time, and they loved a good one.
They can't make it to my Memorial Day party but I'll be sure to remember
that they're the ones who paid for it.
Note by William B. Fox,
Publisher of America First Books
 It
is a keen historic irony that Mike Thornton was the only man in
U.S. military history to receive the Medal of Honor for his heroic
action in saving the life of his team leader, already himself a
recipient of the Medal of Honor.
The
irony would be complete if Thornton's friend and collaborator, Capt.
Eric H. May, were to receive the Medal of Honor as well. A growing
number of military and patriot voices have urged this, such as Lone
Star Iconoclast publisher Leon Smith in his 2 Feb 2010 article
"Captain
Eric H. May Deserves Congressional Medal of Honor."
To
fully understand this irony, one must understand how the struggle
has been elevated from a no-win limited war situation like Vietnam
to a more abstract struggle called "Info War," as reflected
in my Mission
of Conscience Trilogy, subtitled "Captain
Eric May, The Info War, and Amazing Predictions Come True."
This
go around, we are playing for ultimate stakes involving the restoration
of full popular sovereignty rights that have been quietly stolen
away from the American people by a criminal power elite. We are
wise to how Mossad-CIA grows opium in Afghanistan just like it did
in the Golden Triangle during the Vietnam War era. We are also wise
to how Americans are being manipulated by controlled national media
and private
banking cartels. Last, but not least, we are aware of "Info
War" martyrs and other whistle-blowers who have tried to
alert the American public regarding high level traitors against
America's legitimate national interests.
The
enemy has gone from an abstract "Communist Threat" created
as Orwellian "controlled opposition" within a simplistic
"left-right" paradigm to something that is in many ways
vastly more dangerous, subtle, and ancient
-- such as the forces behind the "New World Order" who
are furiously pushing to turn America into an Orwellian police state
and "New Babylon." The enemy is both "within"
as well as "without," consisting of the internal malefactors
behind the Mossad-CIA inside job on 9/11 as well as criminal globalists
profiled in Chapter
5 of my series.
Our
ghost commander-in-chief is Thomas Jefferson, our Standard Operating
Procedure is the U.S. Constitution, and our "frag order"
is the Declaration of Independence. Like many knights of old, American
servicemen have a duty to look at a bigger picture. They have a
duty to protect the ultimate interests of America at large and not
merely blindly serve the short term intrigues of perverse special
interests.
In
many cases, as I explain in Chapter
31 where I discuss pro-Constitution activists like former Arizona
Sheriff Richard Mack and the Oath Keepers movement, American servicemen
have a duty not to obey:
1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American
people.
2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the
American people
3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as “unlawful
enemy combatants” or to subject them to military tribunal.
4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a “state
of emergency” on a state.
5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that
asserts its sovereignty.
6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus
turning them into giant concentration camps.
7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any
form of detention camps under any pretext.
8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign
troops on U.S. soil against the American people to “keep the
peace” or to “maintain control.”
9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the
American people, including food and other essential supplies.
10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the
people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their
government for a redress of grievances.
We
will not torture...we will not lock down the free Internet... we
will not conduct more false flag mass murder operations of American
citizens to justify more wars for Israel and other malevolent special
interests...we are men of principle!
Discretion
is the greater part of valor. We must fight only as thinking, free
men for a free republic. We refuse to be manipulated as mere "goyim"
(Hebrew for "cattle," a slang term for "gentiles")
or die like dogs for an alien elite that works against America's
legitimate national interests.
Lieutenant
Thornton expressed outrage at how America's Vietnam War dead were
forgotten at home. He saw how they were never adequately respected
by Orwellian, controlled national media, despite the fact that the
overwhelming majority of America's servicemen did their duty with
good intentions based upon the information that was made available
to them at the time.
Capt.
May used LT Thornton's philosophy in founding Ghost Troop. His all-American
cyber militia has been dedicated towards honoring the desecrated
and ignored U.S. Iraq War dead from the Battle of Baghdad, as reflected
in the Ghost
Troop Introduction.
"Fool
me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" also applies
to American servicemen who have been manipulated into Orwellian
wars by criminal power elites.
The
"60,000 others on the Wall of the Vietnam," and the tens
of thousands of unacknowledged dead and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan
must never be forgotten, because they demonstrate the extreme seriousness
and urgency of the situation we face today. If we do not act, we
will certainly face far more tragic losses in the future.
It
is our unfinished task to avenge the deaths of not only servicemen
who have died in Orwellian wars abroad, but also the Info War martyrs
who have died trying to wake up Americans on the home front. The
real war is not over until we bring America's real enemies to justice
--to include all the enemies within.
Please
see my online Mission
of Conscience Trilogy for more background not
only regarding leadership demonstrated by Capt. May, but also more
effective ways to mobilize patriotic action for the battles ahead.
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the Battle of Cowpens, S. Carolina, 1781