In Recognition of Veterans Day - November 11, 2006

Title: "We are America's America of the United States Military Services".

When I sleep the sleep of my final breath of eternal life on earth, allow me, Dear God, to see the light at the end of the tunnel as I almost did on the battlefield during World War II in the South Pacific.

Bruises, broken bones, scrapes, devastating fall from heights, cruel diseases, loss of limbs, torturous burns and death from yesterday without any tomorrow's, are wrenchful exigencies of life.

Suffering is suffering whenever and wherever it exists.

Let's try to differentiate these painful and critical experiences listed above with those emotions and trauma conditions, on the battlefield that most of us who there would agree were/are still classificationally different from normal daily living.

The examination of anticipated and real suffering on the battlefield from the enemy above and below is within a click away from death and a heartbeat and rapid breath that dare us to make a crucial comparison.

Consider these reasons and commitments each of us as a sailor, soldier, marine, coast guardsman, U. S. airman pledges in loyalty, honor, dedication and trust in us to perform our duty towards the assigned mission of one's chosen branch of the military.

And perhaps within the bounds of the camaraderie of all fellow warriors and honorable, self-sacrificing female, military personnel, there is the stigma of, "Hey, who are you? What are you?"

As luck would have it, that kind of prejudice is muted and left with those who would ever dare to challenge a warrior's ethnic inheritance and service to his/her country.

Could it be that one of the most revealing vestiges of a man's physical being is to lend himself to battle:

1. For the thrill of the kill

2. To prove himself as a hero or combatant

3. To serve his country and his way of life when under attack

4. To demonstrate his will to fight against and aggrandized, super race whose intent

(during W.W.II) was to destroy and wipe out one of three major religions in the

world and the Jewish people.

5. To participate in an all-volunteer military aggregate mission of the United States

to suppress the religious fanaticism of its terrorist participants, whose engagement

since 2002 - 2006 defies the realm of reasoning with their battle cry of "Kill all

Jews and Americans in the name of Allah".

It's a mystery as to whether those two hundred religions and four billion people on earth will witness the freedom of "Human Rights and their Power of Prayer" in the twenty-first century before the rain comes again.

Yet, it's like an everlasting drama out of the Bible, Hence, "There shall be wars and rumors of wars".

The tomb of the unknown soldiers in Washington, DC Flanders Field and the shores

of  Normandie and Omaha Beach in France, plus all of the cemeteries and hallowed grounds, where all brave and loyal Americans lie buried, are a blessed testimony to their code of honor, legacy of love and devotion to the United States of America.

Man has learned to swim like a fish in the ocean; man has learned to fly like a bird in the sky; then when will man learn to walk on earth like a man?

Is it not true that we all have similar fears of dying for something else than an honorable, worthy cause?

I am an American.

I'm not an apostolic, Baptist, catholic, Methodist, orthodox, Muslim, Jewish or atheist American, but simply an American.

I am not an Asian, European, African, or any other ethnic cultural American, but proudly an American.

My father came from another land, learned the language of this land and became a citizen of the land, an American.

I am an American.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.

As an American, I firmly believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as set forth by my great forefathers. I am from the land of the Free and the home of the Brave. I shall always speak freely and forever bear arms without limitations or infringement.

I am an American.

Col. M. Bud Weber

United States Air Force

Retired.