“In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead.   Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.”

My father taught me this poem as a child. I can still recite it. At the 11th hour, on the 11th day, of the 11th month in 1918 the most horrendous war the world had seen up to that time ended. Unless you are a military historian, most people do not understand the horrific carnage that raged in Europe between 1914 and 1918. It was the first World War. I have been to the battlefield in Verdun France. The local farmers were still carrying gas masks to protect against the occasional gas shell that could still be dug up.

November 11 is celebrated in the United States as Veterans Day. It is also celebrated in the UK and Commonwealth countries as Remembrance Day.  We celebrate it to honor all veterans of the armed forces. Memorial Day, which is celebrated on the last Monday in May, remembers all who gave their lives for our country in war. Replica poppies are often worn on both sides of the Atlantic to remember our veterans.

It is important to remember the sacrifices of our nations veterans in all of our past and ongoing wars. But the value of veterans is not only in what they have already done, but in what they are capable of doing. The United States of America was founded by veterans. Many of them veterans of the British Army in the French and Indian wars. Many of various European armies and continental wars. And up until recent years, veterans played a dominant role in government.

The United States is going through a major political crisis right now. Last November middle America began waking up to the economic and political disaster we had become after eight years of Obama supported by 30 years or more of leftist indoctrination in our education system, and elected Donald Trump. Since that election, we have seen just how deep the corrosion and criminality of the Deep State and the mainstream of both parties had gone. And they will do everything they can to reverse that trend, legal or not.

The potential of serious upheaval in this country is the reason the Founders put the Second Amendment into our Constitution. And  the ongoing series of wars this country has been involved in has given us a tremendous number of combat veterans.

Every member of the Armed Forces takes an oath to defend the CONSTITUTION against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. And millions of them are highly armed and remember that oath. And will live by it.

That is a factor that the Deep State, the corrupt establishment of both parties, and the Marxist/Leftist likes of ANTIFA need to remember.

Happy Veterans Day