A friend, Tony Carter, sent this powerful sentence, "We are the home of the free because of the brave."

   Does it not seem remarkable that we yet have to find so much courage in order to preserve freedom? A continuous line of my ancestors fought for our country including Constant Chapman, an adjutant to George Washington in the Revolutionary War.

   Look at my great grandfather Harlan Page Chapman. Barely into his twenties he has not yet been struck by a bullet fired by a Confederate soldier fighting to defend slavery not freedom.  

   His bravery cost him nine months of suffering in a battlefield hospital. He carried the bullet in his hip the rest of his life. How much greater courage did it take for my cousin Harlan Chapman to endure day after day of torture for seven years as a POW in Viet Nam?

   And now my cousin and those who love him have to suffer through outrageous insults from Donald Trump who refers to him & other POWs as "not heroes because they got captured." 

   This past week Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize Winner & author of tolerance, Elie Wiesel, passed away. President Obama described him as "The conscience of the world." He fought against people like Trump all his life because, as he wrote, "Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." That is why patriotic Americans must speak out against Trump who, this very weekend, tweeted an Anti-Semitic message & continued to mock Native Americans. 

   The high profile patriots who made our country free & kept it so represent millions who suffered in ways we can neither describe nor understand. These are the ones who need our gratitude today & everyday. They are the caregivers of our way of life. 

   America symbolizes freedom even to those who attack it out of fear & ignorance. Dictatorships & terrorists hate free countries because they want dominance not democracy. Because they want to force-feed the values of a few rather than to allow the viewpoints of the many.

   As we scan today's landscape of divisiveness it may seem a hard year to celebrate. Do we not wish that we could push a button, stop all the shouting & choose a land of peace & love? 

   There are, of course, no "buttons" in a democracy. That is why we so desperately need the quality our ancestors displayed. Bravery.

-Erie Chapman