Patriots Day 2005 (article) by Cliff McDuffie on AuthorsDen

My talk to the community before our annual parade to honor our troops. Welcome! On this day four years ago we were going about our lives, business as usual. Then the morning of September 11, 2001 our lives changed forever. For the first time since the Revolutionary War we were attacked on our own soil. Sadly, we had been asleep at the wheel by then, of some 22 years. It was in November of 1979 that our alarm clock went off as Islamic extremist first attacked the U.S. Not on our U. S., soil but half way around the world in Tehran. We have been dozing ever since. Even now there are those who say we have no right to be in Iraq. In the years of King Richard the Lion Hearted, Kings with their Knights and armies invaded the land of Islam calling it a Holy War. Today those Islamic extremist are invading the whole world calling it JIHAD or Holy War. To preserve the right of free people in this great country and all over the world we must do everything in our power to prevent these extremist from wining their Jihad. We have freedoms here in this great country that MUST be preserved unless we want to be returned to a quality of life as it was known some 2000 years ago under dictators, such as Sadam was, who will not allow freedoms as we enjoy them today. We celebrate today as Patriots Day. Not just to recognize those who have given the ultimate sacrifice of their lives since 9-11-01 but all of those who have given their all since the inception of this great country, we so aptly call the United States of America, for FREEDOM. Let me remind you��..The Revolutionary War (1775-1784), Indian Wars ( 1817-1898), Mexican War (1846- 1848) War of 1812 ( 1812-1815), Spanish American War (1898-1902), WWI, WWII, Korea Conflict (1950- 1955), the Cold War, Vietnam Era , the Persian Gulf War ( 1990) and today Iraqi Freedom. A total up to but not including our current Iraqi conflict, of 2,757,196 men and women who are standing before you as American Patriots. This figure, to put it into some perspective, is 100,000 short of the total population in Mississippi in 2000. REMEMBER THEM TODAY��REMEMBER THEM ALL! Thank you

f