Gene Rackovitch reflects on the many blessings of peace.
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by Gene Rackovitch
I see a table full at thanksgiving and notice how my seed has multiplied and am proud and grateful for the years of peace that has been granted us from the sacrifices of so many. When my mind is free of the trials of life as it is now sometimes I think of what it would have been like if the axis hoards had won the war and I negate that thought for the pleasures I have enjoyed throughout my life. And I see in my mind the crosses in all the countries of the world dedicated to men who gave their lives for us to enjoy the seventy odd years of peace we are blessed with now.
Peace isn’t free.
There are times when I look up to the heavens and send a blessing to those that gave their all for the peace we enjoy. There will always be those that try to take our freedom from us and to negate the peace we have attained, but we have no fear from the destroyers of freedom. For we glory in the essence of the peace afforded us by the many who serve now and know if called upon to serve their will be no hesitation to again give our all for the price of freedom.
Peace is not mandated.
It is forwarded by the masses of the world who realize the injustice of barbarism that negates progress while maintaining a command over the masses by subjugation through fear. Those that know or want to enjoy the pleasure of freedom and peace will gladly put to rest the detractors. I look back and see how my life has been full and satisfying reveling in the peace afforded me by my brothers in arms and will be ever grateful to them. There are times when we forget but the holidays bring back the need to remember the ones you owe, and I owe many.
May you all remember this holiday season those that do not have the pleasure of the peace we enjoy, for they gave their all.
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Gene Rackovitch entered the Marine Corps in 1944. In March of 1945, he was attached to C Company, 1st Battalion, 23rd Marines, 4th Marine Division. At the end of the Second World War, he was sent to Guam. He was stationed there for eighteen months. It was there that he amassed the material for his novel, Marines and Renegades.
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Photos by The US Army and Gene Rackovitch
As a 6 th generation vet, yes all the way back to the Confederacy, Freedom would be better served by a large dose of American ‘Stay Home & Mind your OWN House’. The times that the military called me out of my life to go serve (9 times in 25 years) was never to protect freedom, it was always to create chaos, initiate a crisis, launch the Revolution du Jour. The world would be without ISIS, if America didn’t start them up, pay them, protect them and produce their video content.
Well the Native American know that peace is not free and we all know what happen to them when they fought for peace and to maintain their freedom.
Peace is also not free when you have the police and the military trying to crush labor movements and civil rights movements in the USA and in the rest of the world at the behest of the corporations and wealthy people.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. John F. Kennedy
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d, And rouse him at the name of Crispian. He that shall live this day, and see old age, Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.” Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.” Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, But he’ll remember, with advantages, What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, Familiar in his mouth as household words—Harry the… Read more »
As the son of a Navy Veteran, first hit on June the 6th, 1944, and again across the world at the battle for Okinawa; as a former Marine myself, I will simply state that I am honored to have read your words, sir. Each time I have opportunity to revel in my freedom, my holidays, the moments spent with family, I quietly take pause to hearken back to those very men, the men of a very special club that spans from Arlington national to Flanders Field and beyond. It is then that I realize the words, Semper Fidelis have so… Read more »