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Please adhere to our policies for posting opinions. We reserve the right to remove inappropriate language or irrelevant submissions. Member Opinions:By: BrentwoodNative on 7/1/11
This holiday weekend many of us will go to local parks to see a wonderful display of fireworks and live music or attend a parade. I have always loved the 4th of July and remember vividly as kids we would anxiously await the coveted trip to the fireworks stand to pick out fireworks and empty our dad’s wallet all at the same time. We would get home and carefully divvy up our bounty amongst us three boys. I assume it was mostly a boy thing but anytime we possessed the ability to explode things like tin cans and matchbox cars we felt empowered. The fun was multiplied if you could hit moving targets with a Roman candle – you know, things like footballs, frisbees, and slow moving younger siblings. It was a little dangerous but in all fairness most of my younger brothers wounds have long since healed as have my scars from bottle rockets fired in retaliation. As I grew older I came to understand the 4th of July in a whole new light and I realized that no matter how foolish we were with fireworks as kids, none of us were ever truly wounded or scarred. Those terms belonged to the men and women of this great nation who have put their lives on the line since the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775. It is a truly humbling experience to realize that all we have today and our existence as a free nation is a gift from those men and women who have taken up arms to protect those freedoms. Two hundred and thirty –five years ago, 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. Of those 56 signers, five were captured by the British Army and brutally tortured as traitors, nine fought in the War for Independence and died from wounds sustained in battle, two lost their sons in battle, another two had sons captured and tortured, twelve had their homes pillaged and burned, several lost their wives to imprisonment, and seventeen lost everything they owned and died penniless. It wasn’t just these 56 men but an entire nation that put their lives on the line and the lives of their families to create a free nation. The freedom born in the signing of that document would be defended time and time again on battlefields all over the world. That freedom was guaranteed and re-purchased by fallen patriots at places like Bunker Hill, New Orleans, Gettysburg, San Juan Hill, Verdun, Bastogne, Iwo Jima, Pork Chop Hill, Khe Sanh, Fallujah, and Kabul. I know that some of the readers here have loved ones in the military that are currently deployed overseas, some who have had them return recently, and still others who are awaiting a re-deployment. Please thank them for their service and let us all remember it is these brave young men and women that allow us to live our lives each day in freedom. While you are celebrating this 4th, please keep all of these soldiers in your thoughts and wish them a safe and quick return home to their families. Happy Birthday America! Login and voice your opinion! | ||||||||||||||
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Members of The Kadillacs have performed as back-up musicians with no less than The Temptations, Trisha Yearwood, Little Richard and The O’Jays. The 11-member show band has performed in the pit orchestras for over 50 Broadway shows. And tonight, it will return as the second most anticipated part of the city’s 24th annual Fourth of July celebration, a tradition started more than 20 years ago.| Advertisements | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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