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MAF Presents: The Daily File Blog
Here at the Move America Forward Daily File we chronicle the good news on the War on Terrorism you might
not have heard about on the evening news. We also shine the spotlight on those whose conduct against our
country and our military is unbecoming.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Day 1 - Tears, Prayers in Santa Nella
November 26 2007
We just stepped back on the bus after our kickoff event in Santa Nella, California. As the first stop on the main part of the “Honoring Heroes at the Holidays” Tour, Santa Nella was the perfect place to begin a national pro-troop tour with a solemn, spiritual cast away. In previous tours we’ve kicked off with a big bash, but since this tour is all about honoring our heroes for their service and our veterans for their sacrifice, especially those who paid the ultimate price, it was much better to have an intimate ceremony to open up the tour.
We gathered at 9 this morning at the Veterans Memorial in the San Joaquin Memorial Cemetery just outside of Santa Nella. This is the final resting place for thousands of brave souls who gave, quite literally, everything they had to defend their homeland. Accordingly, the Cemetery also houses several memorials. Move America Forward, working with the Department of Veterans Affairs arranged to hold a wreath-laying ceremony with park officials and Move America Forward spokespersons as a signal to begin a 40-city nationwide tour in which we hope to collect 100,000 Christmas, Hanukkah, and Holiday Greeting Cards for troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We were joined by a local Minister, Milton Barry, and a US Army Honor Guard detachment. Reverend Barry opened up our ceremony with an invocation and led us all in prayer, asking for the safety and deliverance of all those who have willingly put themselves in harms way to protect the lives and freedoms of Americans back home. Rev. Barry is a veteran of the armed services himself. He was in the Army for 5 years, retiring in 1940 after being trained as a pilot dropping paratroopers into combat zones. After returning to civilian life, Milton Barry married his lifelong sweetheart and went to college and then seminary school, eventually becoming a Minister of the church and a prominent figure in the community in and around Santa Nella.
After Reverend Barry opened it up for us, Buzz Patterson led us through a short program where he, Deborah Johns and Debbie Lee, all veterans of previous Move America Forward campaigns, shared their stories and communicated how important they all felt it was for us to remember and honor our past and current veterans, and that God-willing, they would be able to return home safely.
When we were ready to lay the wreath, our Military Moms, the “Fighting Debs”, Deborah Johns and Debbie Lee raised the wreath together and gently laid it at the base of the memorial statue. It was a memorial to Airborne Infantry soldiers and was a life size bronze of a soldier in dress uniform and holding his M1 Garand rifle at attention.
I’m now sitting here on the bus, with my family, Move America Forward, on our way to San Jose for a pro-troop rally. This is what we love to do. And this time we have a bus with a professional driver to help us make our trek across 12 states on a mission to bring our troops a message. That message is that this holiday season, while you are serving your country in the scorching heat of the Iraqi sun, dumping the sand out of your boots and checking for scorpions each morning, sleeping in your tents when the desert freezes each night, hunting down al-Qaeda terrorists, rebuilding schools and waterways, restoring power to Iraqi communities, and training Iraqi volunteers into an expert police force and professional military capable of ensuring Iraq’s own national security. As you do these things each day after day, in Iraq, 12,000 miles from your homes here in America, working tirelessly without complaint, we are thinking of you. We thank you. We honor you.
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