Gratitude Journal #2

I really should have posted this on Tuesday, but it has taken me a couple of days to decide what I wanted to say.
I am thankful for all those who have put their lives on the line, over the many years, to make our country strong and free. Since before the Revolutionary War, America has been defended by those who took up arms and put themselves in harms way, so that their families and loved ones would have a chance to live a life of liberty and security. Many have died. Some have fought by choice, many others have taken their place out of duty.
War is a terrible thing. I have stood in the National Peace Memorial Hall for the Atomic Bomb victims in Nagasaki, Japan, and felt the horror of war; the weight of death and suffering for millions of people, each one a child of God, each life infinitely precious. But greater still than the horror of war is the horror of a tyranny of evil reigning unoposed. The evil in the world is real; it does not hesitate to impose itself on communities and nations. I have seen the record of such evil at work. As a teenager I visited the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, one of the largest concentration camp complexes established by Germany during World War II. In Mauthausen, as in other concentration camps, hundreds of thousands of people were systematically exterminated. Unfortunately, bondage, cruelty, terrorism, and other facets of evil have existed in all periods of time; they continue to exist today. Sometimes, taking up the sword is necessary to oppose such evil. I pray that we as a nation, and others of good intent throughout the world, will have the wisdom to discern when such action may be necessary, and the courage to act when it is.