Mighty Thunder Thanks You All!

Mighty Thunder salutes all those who have served or are serving to protect the freedoms we enjoy.  Thanks are not enough to you and your family’s sacrifice, each and every day, to ensure freedom rings across America.

From the bottom of my heart, Thank You!

I want to share a couple of Memorial Day poems and quotes with you here.  Please say a prayer today for those who performed the ultimate sacrifice, those who served and those serving for our freedoms today, along with their families.  If you see military personnel, stop them, shake their hand or give them and hug and tell them thank you.  Without them you might not be here.

This poem is by Curtis D Bennett who explains how he feels when someone forgot him when he once was ready to give his everything for them. So this poem by him is to tell the people to remember the ones who fought for their safety and freedom.

Remember Me

I was once the pride of this country,
The healthy, the young, the strong and brave,
Then I quickly became the acceptable casualty
In my country’s undeclared war
In the name of national interest,
A country where I was too young to vote!
I went because I was still too young
To know any better, though others
Cleverly refused or ran away to hide.
I never once dreamed my own government
Would ever lie to its own people,
But I was mistaken and they did for years.
I fought their war in a hell for one year,
Then came home and found another hell,
Awaiting from the very people and country
Who determined I go in the first place
Then their war, suddenly became mine,
And I was the convenient scapegoat!
Today, I am the broken bodies and minds
Shunted off, out of sight, behind heavy doors
Of VA hospitals and mental wards to die.
I am in wheel chairs and braces, in hospital beds;
I walk the streets; I wander the railroad tracks,
I sleep beneath the stars.

Freedom Isn’t Free

I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
and then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
He’d stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers’ tears?
How many pilots’ planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers’ graves?
No, freedom isn’t free.
I heard the sound of TAPS one night,
When everything was still
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That TAPS had meant “Amen,”
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn’t free.

The Spirit of America Today

A handful of old men walking down the village street
In worn, brushed uniforms, their gray heads high;
A faded flag above them, one drum to lift their feet-
Look again, O heart of mine, and see what passes by!
There’s a vast crowd swaying, there’s a wild band playing,
The streets are full of marching men, or tramping cavalry.
Alive and young and straight again, they ride to greet a mate again-
The gallant souls, the great souls that live eternally!
A handful of old men walking down the highways?
Nay, we look on heroes that march among their peers,
The great, glad Companions have swung from heaven’s byways
And come to join their own again across the dusty years.
There are strong hands meeting, there are staunch hearts greeting-
A crying of remembered names, of deeds that shall not die.
A handful of old men?-Nay, my heart, look well again;
The spirit of America today is marching by!

Here’s a gathering of a portion of the best Memorial Day quotes to impart to friends and family and honor the individuals who have gone before us. Let’s spare a moment from our busy lives to think of these great people who sacrificed their lives without bothering about anything else!

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth. – George Washington

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. – The Wonder Years

What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. – Helen Keller

To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die. – Thomas Campbell

Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. – Rossiter W. Raymond

I think it is all a matter of love; the more you love a memory the stronger and stranger it becomes. – Vladimir Nabokov

One lives in the hope of becoming a memory. – Antonio Porchia

The flames can not burn away the past. They only make the shadows leap higher.” – Max Payne

The best road to progress is freedom’s road. – John F. Kennedy

There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires. – Nelson Mandela

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. – Jim Morrison

Caged birds accept each other but flight is what they long for. – Tennessee Williams

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. – Ronald Reagan

As years passed away I have formed the habit of looking back upon that former self as upon another person, the remembrance of whose emotions has been a solace in adversity and added zest to the enjoyment of prosperity. – Simon Newcomb

True freedom is tolerant. It gives people the right to live and think in new ways. – John Twelve Hawks

Freedom lies in being bold. – Robert Frost

Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life. – Bob Marley

The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage. – Carrie Jones

They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation. – Henry Ward Beecher

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. – Joseph Campbell

The patriot’s blood is the seed of Freedom’s tree. – Thomas Campbell

The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example. – Benjamin Disraeli

Each man is a hero and an oracle to somebody. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for, Is their monument to-day, and for aye. – Thomas Dunn English

For love of country they accepted death. – James A. Garfield

The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children. – William Havard

The dead soldier’s silence sings our national anthem. – Aaron Kilbourn

For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. – William Penn

On thy grave the rain shall fall from the eyes of a mighty nation! – Thomas William Parsons

The brave die never, though they sleep in dust: Their courage nerves a thousand living men. – Minot J. Savage

We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them. – Francis A. Walker

And 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. – Lee Greenwood

Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. – John f. Kennedy

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. – Mark Twain

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. – Nathan Hale

I have long believed that sacrifice is the pinnacle of patriotism. – Bob Riley

Who kept the faith and fought the fight; the glory theirs, the duty ours. –  Wallace Bruce

We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them. – Francis A. Walker

And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier’s tomb, and beauty weeps the brave. – Joseph Rodman Drake

Four things support the world: the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valor of the brave. – Muhammad

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened. – Billy Graham

Dead upon the field of glory, hero fit for song and story. – John Randolph Thompson

It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle. – Norman Schwarzkopf

Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one. – Baltasar Gracian

They fell, but o’er their glorious grave. Floats free the banner of the cause they died to save. – Francis Marion Crawford

They are dead; but they live in each patriot’s breast, and their names are engraved on honor’s bright crest. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. – John F. Kennedy

A hero is one who knows how to hang on one minute longer. – Novalis

I believe it is the nature of people to be heroes, given the chance. – James A. Autry

The hero is the man dedicated to the creation and/or defense of reality-conforming, life-promoting values. – Andrew Bernstein

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. – Elmer Davis

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. – Christopher Reeve

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

National honor is the national property of the highest value. – James Monroe

If our country is worth dying for in time of war, let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace. – Hamilton Fish

It doesn’t take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle. – Norman Schwarzkopf

Where liberty dwells, there is my country. – Benjamin Franklin

If you are ashamed to stand by your colors, you had better seek another flag. – unknown

We come not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them. – Francis a. Walker

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. – unknown

My patriotic heart beats red, white and blue…