You stay up for 16 hours. He stays up for days on end.

You take a warm shower to help you wake up. He goes days or weeks without running water.

You complain of a ‘headache’, and call in sick. He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.

You put on your anti-war/don’t support the troops shirt, and go meet up with your friends. He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.

You make sure you’re mobile phone is in your pocket. He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.

You talk trash about your ‘buddies’ that aren’t with you. He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.

You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls. He patrols the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.

You complain about how hot it is. He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.

You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong. He doesn’t get to eat today…

Your maid makes your bed and washes your clothes. He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.

You go to the mall and get your hair redone. He doesn’t have time to brush his teeth today.

You’re angry because your class ran 5 minutes over. He’s told he will be held over an extra 2 months.

You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight. He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home .

You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday. He holds his letter close and smells his love’s perfume…

You roll your eyes as a baby cries. He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if they’ll ever meet.

You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything. He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and remembers why he is fighting.

You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him. He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded.

You see only what the media wants you to see. He sees the broken bodies lying around him.

You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don’t. He does exactly what he is told even if it puts his life in danger.

You stay at home and watch TV. He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.

You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable. He tries to sleep but gets woken by mortars and helicopters all night long.

Support and pray for your troops.
If you don’t support your troops well, you won’t die, your love life won’t be affected, and you won’t have the worst day ever.
It’s not like you know the men and women that are dying to preserve your rights.

REMEMBER our Troops, and do not forget them LATER

Lest we forget -

This is an article reprinted by permission in it’s entirety from The Christian Law Association’s website www.christianlaw.org. It contains truths that are never heard in our schools or media today. Due to the pernicious demand that we must have a “separation of church and state” by the anti-God crowd, the truth of our country’s Godly heritage has been virtually drowned out. Hopefully this article will help you to see that God is real and that He is still at work.

Americans are beginning to forget the important origins of our national Thanksgiving holiday. Its spiritual significance is no longer taught in our nation’s public schools. In fact, most school children today are taught that Thanksgiving originated when the Pilgrims invited their Indian friends to dinner to thank them for providing sustenance after the Mayflower landed. As with much of modern American revisionist history, there really is much more to the story.

Coming to America

The Atlantic crossing in the fall of 1620 had been an extremely difficult journey for the Pilgrims. For two months, 102 people were wedged into what was called the “tween decks” of the Mayflower-the ship’s cargo space with only about five-and-a-half feet of headroom. No one was allowed above deck because of the terrible storms. This was no pleasure trip. The Pilgrims comforted themselves on their journey by singing from the Book of Psalms. This “noise” irritated one of the ship’s paid crewmembers. He told the Pilgrims he was looking forward to throwing their corpses overboard after they succumbed to the routine illnesses common on such voyages. As it turned out, this crewmember himself was the only person to die on the voyage and be thrown overboard.

God providentially protected His own people. A little-known fact about the Mayflower is that this ship normally carried a cargo of wine; and the wine spillage from previous voyages had soaked the beams, acting as a disinfectant to prevent the spread of disease. During one terrible storm, the main beam of the mast cracked. Death was certain if this beam could not be repaired. At that moment, the whole Pilgrim adventure could very easily have ended on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Providentially, the Pilgrims had with them a large iron printing press screw. That screw repaired the beam, saving the ship and all on board.

“Land Ho!”

After sixty-six days at sea, land was sighted off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, not the place these Pilgrims wanted to be. They intended to establish their new colony in the northern parts of Virginia (which then extended to the Hudson River in modern-day New York), but two factors interrupted their plans. The winds had blown them off course, yes; but they later learned that other Englishmen who wanted to settle in the same part of Virginia had actually bribed the ship’s crew to land them farther north. Despite this chicanery, God was in charge and the Pilgrims landed exactly where God wanted them to be. Had they actually made landfall near the Hudson River, they most certainly would have been immediately attacked by hostile Indians. Instead, they arrived at the one spot along the coast where hostile Indians had been providentially removed from the land.

Many years before the Mayflower journey, local Indians had captured a Frenchman on a fishing expedition to that region. Just as they were about to kill him, the Frenchman warned them God would be angry, would destroy them all, and would replace them with another nation. The Indians boastfully replied that his God could never kill them. Yet, a year or two before the Pilgrims arrived in this very same region, nearly all the native inhabitants had been wiped out by a plague.

Help Arrives

Despite this miraculous provision of safety from hostile Indians, the Pilgrims barely survived their first winter on the Cape. Only four families remained intact; but God was still faithful. In the spring of 1621, He sent Squanto, an English-speaking Indian who offered to teach the Pilgrims how to survive in this strange new land. Squanto was one of only a few local Indians who escaped the plague. He had been captured as a young man and taken to England as a slave. During that time he mastered the English language. When he was freed, he returned to his native territory on the Cape shortly before the Pilgrims arrived.

Probably the most important thing Squanto taught the Pilgrims was how to plant the native winter staple crop-corn. The Pilgrims thanked God for this wonderful helper. They also repaid Squanto by sharing with him the most valuable treasure they had brought with them from England-the Gospel. Squanto died a year or two after coming to the aid of the Pilgrims, but before his death he asked them to pray with him that he might go to be with their God in Heaven.

Peace and Thankfulness

Squanto introduced other Indians to the Pilgrims, and these Indians were also impressed with the Pilgrims‘ God. During the summer of 1621, it appeared the year’s corn harvest would not survive a severe drought. The Pilgrims responded by calling for a day of fasting and prayer.  By the end of the day, it was raining. The rain saved the corn, which miraculously sprang back to life. One of the Indians who observed this miracle remarked that the Pilgrims‘ God must be a very great God because when the Indians pow-wowed for rain, it always rained so hard that the corn stalks were broken down. They noticed the Pilgrims’ God acted differently by sending a very gentle rain that did not damage the corn harvest. It was that miraculous corn harvest in 1621 that provided grain for the Pilgrims‘ first Thanksgiving meal with their Indian friends and helpers.

The evidence of history shows that on this first Thanksgiving Day, both the Pilgrims and Indians thanked God for His great provision and for His goodness toward them all. Unlike other Europeans who came to America, these Bible-believing Pilgrims were model Christians in their dealings with the native populations.

During their first year on the Cape, Squanto, acting as a friend and interpreter, had assisted the Pilgrims in negotiating an important peace treaty with Chief Massasoit, leader of the nearby Wampanoag Indians. The two populations, Indian and Pilgrim, kept that treaty of peace for more than fifty years.

The Tradition Continues

The story of Thanksgiving doesn’t end there. The holiday itself was not officially celebrated until almost 170 years later, after the Revolutionary War had been won and our American Constitution had been adopted. In 1789, Congress approved the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Congress then “recommended a day of public thanksgiving and prayer” to thank God for blessing America.

President Washington declared November 26, 1789, as the first national day of prayer and thanksgiving to the Lord. Another 75 years later, after the Civil War ended, President Abraham Lincoln officially established the last Thursday in November as a day to acknowledge “the gracious gifts of the Most High God,” which He had bestowed on America. Every president continued this tradition until 1941 when Congress officially made Thanksgiving a national holiday.

Teach Your Children

Now that you know the true story of Thanksgiving, this year make sure your children and grandchildren learn it too. As America is currently facing serious challenges both at home and abroad, let‘s join together with countless generations before us in giving thanks to God for blessing and preserving our nation. Let’s make sure that all our children and grandchildren learn Whose hand of protection has been on America; and let’s all pray that He will continue to bless and sustain our nation as we continue to acknowledge and honor Him.

One part of that is the latest treaty that will most likely erode all rights of parents in the United States. Read and be informed:

Parental Rights: the New Wedge Issue (Politico.com)

By Andie Coller

If there were a recipe for creating a new conservative culture-wars issue, it might look something like this: Start with the United Nations, fold in the prospect of an expanded role for government in children’s lives, add some unfortunate court decisions, then toss in Barbara Boxer and Hillary Clinton.

And indeed, when House Republicans recently found themselves with all these ingredients at hand, Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) started pre-heating the oven.

Hoekstra last week introduced a bill in the House to amend the U.S. Constitution to permanently “enshrine” in American society an inviolable set of parents’ rights. The bill had 70 co-sponsors, all Republicans, including Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Minority Leader John A. Boehner.

The bill, said Hoekstra, is intended to stem the “slow erosion” of parents’ rights and to circumvent the effects of a United Nations treaty he believes “clearly undermines parental rights in the United States.”

The treaty to which he refers is the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, a 20-year-old document signed by President Bill Clinton in 1995 but never ratified. The treaty sets international standards for government obligations to children in areas that range from protection from abuse and exploitation to ensuring a child’s right to free expression.

While a treaty that seeks to protect children may sound innocuous, its opponents, such as Michael Farris, the Christian conservative founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, see in it a dystopian future in which “Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children”; “A child’s ‘right to be heard’ would allow him (or her) to seek governmental review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed”; and “Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion,” as he puts it on his website parentalrights.org.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child emerged from relative obscurity most recently when, during the presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama replied to a question about the treaty by saying he found it “embarrassing” that the United States stood with Somalia – the only other U.N. member that has not ratified the treaty — and promised to review it as president, and then again in the confirmation hearing for Ambassador Susan Rice, when Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) pressed the then-nominee on the treaty’s status.

“[H]ow can we be proud of our country when we haven’t ratified?” Boxer asked. “In this case, the only other country, as I understand it, that hasn’t ratified is Somalia. OK — excuse me. This is America. We’re standing with Somalia. What is happening? What has happened?”

Rice replied that it was a “shame” that the United States is “keeping company” with Somalia, adding that “there can be no doubt that the president-elect and Secretary Clinton and I share a commitment to the objectives of this treaty and will take it up as an early question.”

That was enough to raise the hackles of parents’ rights advocates and sympathetic legislators, but it was far from a promise that the treaty would be sent to the Senate, or that it would ultimately be ratified; Rice also told Boxer that it was a “complicated treaty,” and that the State Department would need to take a close look at how to “manage the challenges of domestic implementation.”

She wasn’t kidding.
By its nature, the treaty combines two “third-rail” issues for conservatives — the implications of international treaties for U.S. sovereignty, and the role of the United Nations in U.S. affairs. “Opposing the U.N has been a rallying cry of the right for decades,” notes Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.

And then there’s the issue of parental rights, which has long been simmering on the right — in the mid-’90s, the idea that the government was infringing upon parents’ domain became a focus of the Christian Coalition and gained currency with those like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who introduced federal legislation to protect parents’ rights — but which might, given enough heat, come to a mainstream boil.

Indeed, with the treaty back in play, Hoekstra and Co. have begun laying the groundwork for just that possibility.

There is, of course, the legislation, but there is also a link on Hoekstra’s congressional home page that now takes interested parties to parentsrights.us, a site that provides pithy talking points about the amendment and the treaty in its FAQs section, a “contact Congress” option, and an opportunity to “show support” for the amendment, which had garnered 166 backers at last count.

Opponents of the treaty, such as Farris, who helped craft Hoekstra’s amendment, frequently cite cases in which government has run roughshod over parents’ rights in the past as evidence that no good will come of ratification.

“It is really about government empowerment; it has nothing to do ultimately with the rights of children,” he says. “It just fits in so well with everything else that is going on in Washington right now. They’re trying to run everything.”

Advocates counter that 193 countries have managed to take the plunge without catastrophic result; that the treaty is supported by groups ranging from the Girl Scouts to the Christian Children’s Fund; and that opponents both overestimate and misunderstand the treaty’s purpose and likely impact.

“The Committee on the Rights of the Child has been unfairly characterized as a kind of Big Brother apparatus, where countries could be shamed and penalized, but that was not the intent of it,” says Meg Gardinier, chairwoman of the Campaign for U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Of the treaty’s likely domestic impact, she says, “I think it could make a modest, thoughtful inroad in this country,” says Gardinier. “I don’t think it’s going to move mountains.”

The truth is that, as Rice noted, the treaty is complex, and, as with the law in general, the implications of a given provision can’t be fully understood until it is road tested in reality.

Practically speaking, that means that whatever the treaty’s merits or risks, it is difficult to say a given outcome is impossible, but relatively easy to envision extreme “doomsday” scenarios — or to offer up real cases in which bad decisions have been made as evidence that the worst will result. The rebuttal arguments are frequently nuanced and less viscerally satisfying, which makes defenders’ position even more difficult.

Notes Baruch College political science professor Douglas Muzzio: “Nuance isn’t the culture warrior’s forte. And in fact, the lack of nuance is their major weapon.”

“It’s a no-win kind of debate for the advocates,” agrees Zelizer, who believes treaty supporters could find themselves caught off guard.

Conservatives, he notes, are “looking for issues. And if this looks like this is an issue they can hook onto, they’ll turn this into a bigger issue than human-rights advocates ever expected it would be.”

When asked what he thought the parental rights amendment’s chances for passage were, Hoekstra said, “If there’s no major court cases or anything that highlight this [issue], it’ll be very slow progress thorough Congress, and nothing will happen this year.”

However, he noted, “If the Senate tries to bring up the U.N. Treaty of the Child,” he says, “it will bring this front and center.”

And if that happens, he adds, “we’ll be ready.”