3 "Touching Moments"

“As I’ve said about the flag pin, I don’t want to be perceived as taking sides,” Obama said. “There are a lot of people in the world to whom the American flag is a symbol of oppression. And the anthem itself conveys a war-like message. You know, the bombs bursting in air and all. It should be swapped for something less parochial and less bellicose. I like the song ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.’ If that were our anthem, then I might salute it.”

And, in my opinion, it is partly because of this comment that we have so many disrespecting our flag and national anthem.

Touching Moments By Greg Schweizer

Let me say first that anytime I watch a war movie I always get an eerie feeling, especially if it’s about WWII. When I saw the movie “Saving Private Ryan” I had the strangest sensation that I was there when they were landing on the beaches. And I felt the pain when friends were dying by their sides. It’s like I was there at the time, and I don’t believe in reincarnation, an after life or life after death, not any of that. But the mental anguish and sensitivity feels so real when I see these kind of stories. I never felt physical pain, just emotional and/or psychological.

When I was in Luxembourg I visited the Luxembourg Cemetery because I read that it is where they had laid General George S. Patton, Jr. to rest.

The sensations were mixed when I walked through the gates. You see the memorial chapel that is there to memorialize all of the soldiers buried there that had given their lives to keep freedom in that country and bring it back to all of Europe. As you walk over to the monument you see the breathtaking sight of over 5,076 white crosses off to your left on 50.5 acres. There are two flag poles overlooking the graves with American Flags. Between the two flagpoles lies the grave of General George S. Patton, Jr.

While walking through this place of eternal rest for so many that had given everything, their lives, gave me eerie sensations too, but they weren’t the same painful ones I experienced when I watched the movie. They were serene and relaxing sensations. But I could imagine what these soldiers must have been feeling, going through and having to deal with all of these moments so far away from home and in a strange land. These soldiers were here to try and make things better in the world but didn’t have any idea that what they gave up here was ever going to make a difference. So many of them were young and for most it was probably their first time away from home. Just think back to that first time you had to say good bye to mom, dad, brothers and sisters, and chances are, you weren’t even going to someplace so far away, unpredictable and dangerous as these soldiers were. They were going to a land that most, if they were lucky enough to have had any kind of education, read about in books.

If you stopped and looked out over all those crosses, and then closed your eyes, you could actually feel and almost hear the battles going on in the background, in the fields not very far from that spot. All of these things were running through my head and I had to realize how thankful we all have to be for these and all of the soldiers that gave their lives for our freedom. And then all of the people that take that for granted today, even with the soldiers sacrificing for the same thing today.

I visited the Anne Frank House when visiting Amsterdam. It was amazing to me that someone would live like that and then even more amazing that they had to live like that in order to stay alive for as long as they did. And then to end up dying the way they did. I felt sad for these families that lived in such fear and this is the way it was across Europe. And this was all because of Hitler and the Nazi’s. Not because of the Germans, but the Nazi beliefs because of Hitler. These are the same Nazi beliefs that some still practice today here in the United States. And the funny thing is, if you want to call it funny, if we were under the kind of rule they want, they wouldn’t be free to believe that way. And if they really look at themselves, they are not free. They live under very restrictive rules and laws.

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