We’ve all experienced “indelible moments,” you know, when something happens that you will never forget, etched in your mind forever. For those who have served in the military, there are moments in their lives they would like to forget but can’t!

Veterans who experienced, first-hand, the hell of war come home with physical and emotional scars that those who have not served in the military cannot possibly understand. Veterans are easily and emotionally moved when they see slogans such as “All gave some, some gave all.” Every veteran who has served in a combat mission and has lived through it is forever reluctant to talk about it. This, too, is an unexpected indelible moment. They live a continual paradox, grateful they have made it home and haunted by those left behind!

My family is no exception. Three Purple Hearts — dad, two uncles — were given for wounds received during horrific combat. One uncle paid the ultimate price! While manning a 50-caliber weapon on a U.S. battleship, a Japanese torpedo struck the ship broadside and he was completely dismembered. My aunt was home with two children; one of the children never saw her father and the father never saw his child before paying the ultimate price for freedom. My aunt received a telegram telling her that she would never see her husband again. Can you imagine?

I pray that those who persist in anti-American rhetoric and anarchy would come to their senses and realize living here in the United States of America is a privilege fought for and won by someone they don’t even know. Ask every soldier who has represented that flag if they think it’s OK to burn the American flag or if it’s OK to obstruct law enforcement officers while doing their duty of upholding the laws we have here in America. Every soldier left behind, every soldier who has survived and lives with the emotional scars of battle would call this behavior an ambush. Every soldier at Arlington National Cemetery would love to look each of us in the eye, their wounds fully displayed, and ask, “What did I die for?”

Is the Lee Greenwood song still true today or have we gone so far astray that we would rather embrace a Marxist form of government that wants to control everything, leaving freedom as simply an indelible moment in our lives? The lyrics are profound: “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free. And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me. I’d gladly stand up next to you and defend Her still today. Because there ain’t no doubt, I love this land, God Bless the U.S.A.”

God bless the U.S.A.? A guy by the name of Isaiah once predicted, “There will come a time when moral confusion will reign and evil will be called good and light will be called darkness, a societal decline where truth becomes distorted.” Are we there? If we are, repentance would be the better alternative.