Today Is Veterans Day But Few Ever Remember THESE Vets
Sgt Daniel Shays & General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson are every bit the patriot veteran heroes that Patton's men were. So were the veterans at LePanto.
Today is Veterans Day and we should pray for the repose of all the souls lost in ‘Muricah’s battles but we can also commemorate all the veterans who gave their all in wars for liberty in Christendom, without which, the New World is never discovered by Christians. Most people think this means to throw on Fox News, say the pledge of allegiance while standing then go and put on a copy of Tora Tora Tora or The Green Berets with some beer and popcorn.
“War is hell.” - Sherman
Then why are we still sending a mother’s babe into them without having the courage to proclaim them? It’s an outrage and it must needs stop.
Remember….
Remember…
The REAL story of Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson is one told in a series of pamphlets featuring “war heroes”, published by State Farm (yes THAT State Farm!) in 1928 that had gone out of print. I put the Jackson edition back into print back in 2010 (sorry no hard copies survived but the ebook is here), on Page 16 we learn of the true character of Stonewall.
Never forget the sacrifice of Sgt. Daniel Shays and his men who were driven to abject poverty by the elites in Boston led by then Governor James Bowdoin. “Shays Rebellion” was a Just war fought for a Just cause: he and his men were deprived of the living wages they had been promised.
George Washington’s Ladies of Mount Vernon tell the story, thus…
Protests in western Massachusetts grew more tumultuous in August 1786 after the convening of the state legislature failed to address any of the numerous petitions it had received concerning debt relief. Daniel Shays quickly rose among the ranks of the dissidents, having participated in the protest at Northampton courthouse in late August. Shays' followers called themselves "Regulators," in reference to a reform movement in North Carolina that occurred two decades earlier. After the state legislature failed to address the group’s petitions, Shays led organized protests at county court hearings, effectively blocking the work of debt collectors. In response to the growing crisis, Washington wrote desperately to Humphreys, worried that "commotions of this sort, like snow-balls, gather strength as they roll, if there is no opposition in the way to divide and crumble them."
Today is also the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours, a veteran in his own right and one the great saints of the Roman Empire.
Martin, born in Sabaria at Pannonia, was ten years old, when against his parents’ wishes he went to a Church and asked to be enrolled amongst the catechumens. At fifteen he enlisted as a soldier, and served first in the army of Constantius, and then in that of Julian. At eighteen, when he had given part of his cloak to a poor man at Amiens, he was strengthened by a wonderful apparition of Jesus Christ and eagerly received baptism. Then leaving the military life, he was received among the acolytes of Hilary, the bishop of Poitiers. Later made bishop of Tours, he built a monastery, where with eighty monks he lived in a most holy way for some time. When he was seized with severe fever at Candes, a village of his diocese, he had pity on his disciples, and thus prayed to God: “Lord, if I am still necessary for your people, I will not refuse the labor.” Shortly after, when death was imminent, the enemy of mankind appeared him. “Why are you here, cruel beast?”, said Martin. “You will find no deadly sin in me.” With those words he gave back his soul to God at the age of eighty one, famous for many miracles.
What of the veterans of The Holy Fleet who saved all of Christendom from the Muslim armada led by Ali Mustafa at the Battle of LePanto!?
I pray for all those who fought gallantly in war and gave their all. Chesterton put today in the best perspective I think and I will close with it.
“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
– Illustrated London News, Jan. 14, 1911
Saint Martin of Turs, ora pro nobis!