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MAF Blogger Danny
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I have to give a big, huge, ginormous thank you to the people and the city government of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

No other city, to my knowledge thus far, has given us as much cooperation as Las Cruces did. I was not coordinating this effort, Mary Pearson was, but I think that the city officials in Las Cruces basically took care of everything.

Okay I also have to tell you why we were late. First of all, our Tucson rally ran really late. Our rally in Tucson went really well so usually that means you stay later. A lot of the people who came wanted to hang out with us and talk afterwards, and also meet and talk to Col. Byrge who had been one of our speakers. So it took us a little while getting out of there. Then on the road it got worse because of Joe and Ryan’s little mishaps. What happened was that Joe and Ryan were up ahead of the RV. I believe because we in the RV had to stop for gas whereas Ryan and Joe kept going. They had a pretty good lead on us, so Joe and Ryan decide to stop and enjoy some of the local offerings off Highway 10. There they found a diary queen and “THE THING!”

The dairy queen satisfied their hunger and THE THING satisfied Joes quest for adventure and expanding his knowledge of the world. What burning questions about the purpose of life or man’s place in the world would THE THING answer?

None.

The thing was just another cheesy roadside attraction that the intelligent, well-read staff of that most well-respected and admired organization Move America Forward were suckered into wasting several precious dollar bills on. Well on the plus side Joe and Ryan got a burger and some ice cream out of it too. But as a consequence they went from being 15 minutes ahead of the caravan to 40 minutes behind it!

So, this happens all the time, we arrive late or at different times. Something ALWAYS happens. This time however, it would have been really nice to come in with a full convoy because the City of Las Cruces had arranged for a full four-motorcycle police escort from the freeway to the memorial park where they had everything set up.

It was so great when the officers caught up with us. Two of them shot out in front of the RV, and two followed the Tahoe behind us. They had their lights on and we were creeping through red lights like a bunch of big shots or something. And all over the place when we drove people were slowing down or inching out of the way. It’s possible they thought they were being pulled over, or maybe they just wanted to let us have the road.

When we got to the memorial park I was so surprised to see everything they had arranged. I mean in addition to the police escort they brought about twice the amount of sound equipment as we generally lug around. They had a big table that was chock full of letters for the troops all written by local elementary school kids. There was a podium up that looked very neat, clean and professional. I preferred it a lot to the podium we usually use. It was a real pretty blonde wood and it carried the City Seal on it. The city also arranged for an official raising and lowering of the flag at the beginning. The city also arranged for a Marine Corps color guard and bugler to assist the raising of the flag.

Well when we first arrived we thought we wouldn’t be able to start without Ryan and Joe because of lacking the sound equipment. I walked around greeting everyone I could to thank them for putting this on for us and talked a bit with the coordinators and then we realized that Diane could sing and Debbie Lee could speak on the equipment they already had set up. The whole event opened up with an introduction by the gentleman from the veterans association who arranged much of it, and he led us through the waving of the flag and the bugle team played reveille while the flag went up. Then we all pledged allegiance and Delores from the City Counsel recognized several members of the community who were present and who had helped organize everything.

A representative from the local Republican central committee gave some words.

A staffer from Senator Domenici’s field office read a letter from the Senator addressed to the troops and to their families. She could not hold back her tears while reading it. She herself must have believed it as genuinely as the Senator himself.

Peal harbor survivor – one of two who reside in Las Cruces – and his wife.

The Bataan Death March memorial

I was absolutely amazed at all the people present and their heart felt appreciation for what we were doing, traveling around the country, spreading the message about our troops, a message of truth, and pride. You know, at almost every rally people ask Buzz to sign their books. People ask Diana to sign their cds. We ask people to sign our “victory blanket”. But never before has anyone asked me to sign anything for them. I’m just like…the guy who stands behind the table and says “yes we have mediums, would you like fries with that?” But the people of Las Cruces were really thankful.

You know I bet that’s how the soldiers feel sometimes…kind of like… well I’m not doing anything special…but you seem to be thanking me for it. Buzz always tells this story about when he was out in Iraq with some Melanie to do their “Voices of Soldiers” radio thing in July 2005. While there one of the camera men went out on patrol with the Iraqi army and was filming them. Out of nowhere this middle aged Iraqi guy walks up to him in the street with a little girl in his arms, she must have been 5 years old. The Iraqi guy asks, as best as he can with his limited knowledge of English, “Would you please bless my daughter?” Buzz always says that at this point the camera man was freaked out because so far it sounds like a classic suicide bomber move. Use the kid to distract the soldier while you pull the pin and blow everyone up. But what actually happened was that this Iraqi guy took the cameraman’s hand and placed it over his daughter’s forehead and said “Please bless her, Bless her with the freedoms that you have.”

I bet this camera man was dumbfounded. What freedoms? We all hear constantly about how our second amendment rights are being squashed, our all important civil rights, our freedom of speech, due process. We are always complaining about these things because it seems that at any given time, someone is trying to impede your rights.

I don’t want to make light of that. We should always guard our rights to make sure that government never grows too large or too powerful. We must always guard our rights and fight for freedoms that are not given when due. But think of how many freedoms we have that we take for granted.

We may have racism in this country sometimes, but we are no longer living in civil war over the issue. We may not have absolute freedom of speech, but our courts work to protect it under the circumstances where it is applicable, which is most of the time, I think. We may not have all the rights we as Americans want, and our society may not look the way we would like it to look…I’m referring to social problems such as poverty, dependence on government programs, crime, drugs, etc. Our country is definitely not perfect. But think of all the things that we have taken for granted ever since we declared independence from Britain. That right of sovereignty, self-determination, democracy.

That is one fundamental thing that America (for the most part) has ALWAYS enjoyed, and that the Iraqi people have NEVER known. Is that not worth fighting for? To give that gift to another race of fellow men? A gift which we all feel is our birthright…we claim it because we are citizens of this country, but who is to act as advocate for the Iraqi citizen who has lived under oppressive totalitarian regime after oppressive theocratic regime for thousands of years? We must.

We must.