The Bible says: Romans 1:17

“The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall live by faith.'”

The greatest barrier to our faith is not circumstances, your past, or anyone’s actions. Rather, it’s your lack of belief in God’s sovereignty, wisdom, and love. You don’t trust Him. And it’s hindering His power from flowing in your life.

So how do you overcome faulty faith? First, ask the Lord to help you be so centered on Him that when difficulties arise, you immediately look for Him and He will help you achieve this focus as you spend time with Him and meditate on His Word daily.

Second, relinquish you desire for control. Friend, it’s scary to let go; there’s no doubt about it. But whenever the Father calls you to follow Him in Faith, He promises to support you every step of the way. He assumes full responsibility for your needs and is ready to equip you for whatever arises.

So overcome your faulty faith by releasing your need to direct your circumstances and trusting in your sovereign Savior. Obey God and leave the consequences to Him. He will certainly bless you.

So pray: ‘Father strengthen my faith. Help me to trust you fully whenever troubles arise and keep my eyes fixed on You, Amen’.

(Below is an accurate account of the founding of the U.S. Marines and the U.S. Coast Guard. Do read it so that you will know the history of their beginning)

When a lower court does not give you justice, you appeal your case to a higher court, and ultimately to the Supreme Court.

But what if the Supreme Court does not give you justice?

You appeal to Heaven!

This was the inspiration behind one of the first flags of America’s navy — The Pine Tree Flag.

Why the Pine Tree?

Eastern White Pine Trees grew to a height of over 150 feet and were ideal for use as masts on British ships.

The King would send forest surveyor agents onto colonial American farms and mark the best trees as belonging to the King.

These pines contributed to the British navy becoming the most powerful navy in the world.

Colonists did not like government agents coming onto their property.

In 1734, there was a Mast Tree Riot where men disguised as Indians chased away the King’s forest surveyor.

In 1772, New Hampshire had another show of resistance with the Pine Tree Riot.

The King sent agents to enforce his claim to every tree in New England over 12 inches in diameter.

In 1772, the sheriff came to South Weare, New Hampshire, to arrest those who had cut down some of the King’s trees.

In retaliation, 30 men burst into the sheriff’s room at the inn at night. With their faces blackened with soot to hide their identity, they beat the sheriff sore with switches made from pine branches.

The men were later arrested and forced to pay a fine.

This incident was a test of the King’s authority and was considered by some as the beginnings of the revolution.

When the Revolutionary War started, General Washington’s secretary, Colonel Joseph Reed, suggested in a letter, October 21, 1775:

“Construct a flag with a white ground and a tree in the middle, the motto AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN.”

On July 26, 1776, the Massachusetts General Court chose it as the flag of the state’s navy:

“…that the Colours be a white Flag, with a green Pine Tree, and an Inscription, ‘APPEAL TO HEAVEN.'”

CNN published the article “The history behind the controversial ‘Appeal to Heaven’ flag,” May 31, 2024, stating:

“The Appeal to Heaven flag has multiple meanings and has been used in differing capacities. The flag served as a naval ensign in Massachusetts until 1971, and until recently, flew outside San Francisco’s city hall alongside other historic flags.” 

The Pine Tree Flag was a symbol of resistance similar to the Liberty Tree Flag.

Both were flown in New England towns, churches, riverbanks, as well as at the nation’s capital in Philadelphia. The flag’s phrase, “An Appeal to Heaven,” was first used by John Locke in his Second Treatise on Civil Government, 1690, regarding the right of citizens who have been denied justice to go above the King’s head: “Where the body of the people is deprived of their right where there lies no appeal on earth … they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven. Where there is no judicature (justice) on earth, to decide controversies amongst men, God in heaven is judge. He alone, it is true, is Judge of the right. So in this he should appeal to the Supreme Judge.”

Patrick Henry referenced the phrase in his “give me liberty or give me death” speech at the Second Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775:

“An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! We shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations.”

Massachusetts Provincial Congress stated April 26, 1775, following the Battles of Lexington and Concord:

“Appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we determine to die or be free.”

Thomas Jefferson helped draft The Declaration of Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms, July 6, 1775, which stated:

“We most solemnly, before God and the world resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves. With an humble confidence in the mercies of the Supreme and Impartial Judge and Ruler of the Universe.”

The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776, stated:  The American navy can be traced back to the “Appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.”

In June of 1775, citizens acting as merchant mariners captured the British schooner HMS Margaretta around Machias, Massachusetts (present-day Maine).

That same month, General George Washington, with the help of merchant ship owner Colonel John Glover of Marblehead, Massachusetts, chartered and outfitted several ships to interrupt the British supplies.

The marker at the base of John Glover’s statue in Boston states:

“John Glover of Marblehead – A Soldier of the Revolution. He commanded a regiment of one thousand men raised in that town known as the marine regiment, and enlisted to serve throughout the war.

He joined the camp at Cambridge, June 22, 1775, and rendered distinguished service in transporting the army.”

On September 2, 1775, George Washington personally financed America’s first armed naval vessel, the USS Hannah, named for John Glover’s daughter. Less than a week later, on September 7, 1775, the USS Hannah captured the British ship HMS Unity, the first prize taken by a U.S. naval vessel.

Other ships were outfitted by John Glover:

• Franklin,
• Warren,
• Hancock, and
• Lee.

These ships had crews mostly of experienced Massachusetts fisherman who defended American ports and raided British ships transporting ammunition and supplies.

This flotilla, sometimes referred to as Washington’s fleet, captured 55 British ships.

The American schooner Lee captured the British brig HMS Nancy on November 29, 1775, with its cargo of 2,000 Brown Bess muskets, 100,000 flints, 30,000 of artillery ammunition, 30 tons of musket ammunition, and a 13 inch brass mortar.

This was a tremendous benefit to the new Continental Army stationed near Boston.

A Continental Congress resolution to create a navy was introduced October 13, 1775, but was tabled.

On December 22, 1775, the resolution passed, and the Continental Congress authorized a Continental Navy, consisting of:

• two 24-gun frigates, Alfred and Columbus;

• two 14-gun brigs, Andrew Doria and Cabot;

• three schooners, Hornet, Wasp, and Fly.
• he Continental Navy was put under the command of Esek Hopkins, Esq.

Plus the three masted fighting ship, The Eagle, which served with distinction during the war and is still maintained by the Cadets at Annapolis in sailing condition.

Four captains were appointed:

Dudley Saltonstall, Abraham Whipple, Nicholas Biddle and John Burrows Hopkins.

Congress also commissioned five first lieutenants, one of whom was the future naval hero, John Paul Jones.

On August 27, 1776, Washington lost the devastating Battle of Brooklyn Heights. The entire American army was trapped against the water. The Revolutionary War would have ended there unless Washington could find a way to evacuate his army.

John Glover and his Marblehead fishermen saved the day by rowing Washington and the entire Continental Army, under an amazing fog, that all knew was provided by God, for there had never been suck a fog on the East River to last most all day.  It caused no sound to be heard by the British forces, dug-in right there, as Washington’s men escaped across the East River to Manhattan Island.

Glover’s large Durham rowboats also ferried Washington and the Continental Army across the ice packed Delaware River for the surprise attack on the German Hessian troops at the Battle of Trenton, December 26, 1776 on Christmas day.

Another early American flag was designed by Brigadier General Christopher Gadsden, a South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress.

The flag had the words “Don’t Tread On Me.”

Ben Franklin had made that phrase popular during the French and Indian War by printing it in his Pennsylvania Gazette, 1754, in a call to join the Albany Congress.

Ben Franklin and John Adams described Gadsden’s flag in a letter to the Ambassador of Sicily, 1778:

“ A South Carolina flag with a rattlesnake in the middle of thirteen stripes.”

South Carolina congressional journals, February 9, 1776, recorded:  “Col. Gadsden presented to the Congress an elegant standard, such as is to be used by the commander in chief of the American Navy; being a yellow field, with a lively representation of a rattlesnake in the middle in the attitude of going to strike and these words underneath, “Don’t tread on me.”

A version of the Gadsden Flag was called the First Navy Jack, and was flown by Esek Hopkins, the first Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Navy, on his flagship the USS Alfred.

It was also flown by John Paul Jones and other Navy ships.

Where the army fought on land, and the navy fought at sea, and a special force was created of soldiers who could sail and fight with the navy and also lead an invasion and fight on land.

On November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress passed a resolution creating two battalions of Continental Marines.

The first marines were recruited at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, and served under the command of Captain Samuel Nicholas.

The first Marine amphibious assault was on March 3, 1776, when they sailed to the Bahamas and captured a British ammunition depot and naval port, Fort Montagu and Fort Nassau.

America’s first navy grew to over 40 vessels.

On August 4, 1790, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton recommended the creation of the Revenue Marine, later called Revenue Cutter Service.

It consisted of 10 ships charged with stopping smuggling and French privateers from operating in American waters.

The Revenue Marine’s first seven masters (captains) were commissioned by President George Washington on March 12, 1791. The Revenue-Marine was the only armed maritime service of the United States till the Department of the Navy was created in 1798.

During the U.S.-French Quasi War of 1798, eight Revenue Cutter vessels were among the 45 American ships that served in combat.

The Marines were recommissioned on July 11, 1798. The Marines fought in the Barbary Wars, “to the shores of Tripoli,” against the Muslim pirates of North Africa, 1801-1805, 1815. (And in my favorite movie “The Wind and The Lion” the Marines marched in in their dress blues and mowed down all the guards of the Pasha and freed Mrs. Pedecaris from the Raisuli.)

Marines fought courageously in future American conflicts, as in the War of 1812, where they firmly held the center line of defense at the Battle of New Orleans, under the command of General Andrew Jackson.

The United States Revenue-Marine ships began intercepting slave ships from North Africa after the U.S. Government passed the Slave Trade Act of 1794.

Captured Africans had been sold at Arab Muslim slave markets since the 7th century, notably in Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, Cairo and Zanzibar.

Beginning in the 15th century, Arabs sold African slaves to Portuguese merchants, followed by Spanish, Dutch, French and English merchants.

Arabs made slaves of Europeans they captured at sea or coastal towns.

The Ottoman Empire captured and sold about 2 million Russians and Polish-Lithuanians as slaves, most notably at slave markets in Caffa (Feodosia) on the Black Sea.

A 19th century account of the Arab-African slave trade was given by the missionary David Livingstone.

“We passed a slave woman shot or stabbed through the body and lying on the path, an Arab who passed early that morning had done it in anger at losing the price he had given for her, because she was unable to walk any longer.

We passed a woman tied by the neck to a tree and dead.

We came upon a man dead from starvation.

The strangest disease I have seen in this country seems really to be broken heartedness, and it attacks free men who have been captured and made slaves.”

David Livingstone estimated that each year over 80,000 Africans died before reaching the Muslim slave markets, writing to the editor of the New York Herald:

“If my disclosures regarding the terrible Ujijian slavery should lead to the suppression of the East Coast slave trade, I shall regard that as a greater matter by far than the discovery of all the Nile sources together.”

On January 1, 1808, exactly 55 years before Republican President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Congress closed all U.S. ports to the importation of slaves.

The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service intercepted slave ships coming from Africa and freed nearly 500 slaves.

One such slave ship, the Antelope, was captured by the U.S. Revenue-Marines on June 29, 1820, off the coast of Florida.

To free the slaves, Francis Scott Key fought legal battles in their defense, spending his own time and money for seven years, arguing for the slaves’ freedom all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Francis Scott Key also gave legal help to John Quincy Adams in his 1841 fight to free slaves from the ship La Amistad.

The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service defended the United States in many major conflict, including the:

• Quasi War with France;

• War of 1812;

• Counter-Piracy operations;

• Mexican-American War; (From which “From the Halls of Montezuma” was added to the Marine Anthem.)

• Civil War,

• Spanish-American War,

• World Wars I and II.

In 1915, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service was merged with the U.S. Lifesaving Service to form the U.S. Coast Guard.

The original anthem of the  Guard U.S. Coast was:

“To sink the foe or save the maimed,

Our mission and our pride,

We’ll carry on ’til Kingdom Come,

Ideals for which we’ve died.”

In 1939, the U.S. Lighthouse Service was merged into the U.S. Coast Guard, as was the Steamboat Inspection Service and Bureau of Navigation in 1946.

In 1967, the U.S. Coast Guard was transferred to the Department of Transportation.

President John F. Kennedy remarked aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Training Barque “Eagle,” August 15, 1962:  “This is a very ancient service in our country’s history. Its first father Alexander Hamilton, began the Coast Guard as a revenue collecting service, asked the Congress of the United States for appropriations for 10 vessels.

The first, Eagle, was one of our most distinguished warships, and in actions against privateers of France, captured over five vessels, and recaptured seven American vessels”

President Kennedy ended:  “This is the oldest continuous seagoing service in the United States, stretching back to the beginning of our country.”

Acknowledging that protecting the borders was a primary reason for the creation of the Federal Government, President Herbert Hoover stated December 27, 1929:

“A further proposal is the definite expansion of the Coast Guard in the matter of border patrol.”

Included in the list of casualties at the WWII Battle of Okinawa, President Truman stated, June 1, 1945:  “Navy and Coast Guard losses were 4,729 killed and 4,640 wounded.”  

At the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, September 20, 1952, President Truman stated:  “I was just reading about the Coast Guard’s icebreaker that has been closer to the North Pole than any other ship in delivering food and supplies to a station up there. That, my young friends, is what makes this country great.”

President John F. Kennedy continued his address aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Training Barque “Eagle,” August 15, 1962:  “You serve our country in peacetime, on ice patrols and weather patrols, in protecting the standards of the merchant marine, in protecting safety at sea and in time of war you, with the American Navy, as you did in World War II and at the time of Korea.”

At the U.S. Coast Guard commencement in New London, June 3, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson remarked:  “Winston Churchill once said: ‘Civilization will not last, freedom will not survive, peace will not be kept, unless mankind unites together to defend them and show themselves possessed of a power before which barbaric forces will stand in awe’. In every area of national strength America today is stronger than it has ever been before, It is stronger than the combined might of all the nations in the history of the world. And I confidently predict that strength will continue to grow.”

President Johnson continued:

“No one can live daily, as I must do, with the dark realities of nuclear ruin, without seeking the guidance of God to find the path of peace. We have built this staggering strength not to destroy but to save, not to put an end to civilization but rather to try to put an end to conflict.”

At a U.S. Coast Guard commencement, May 18, 1988, President Reagan stated to the Cadets: 

“It’s our prayer for you to serve America in peace. It’s our commitment to defend her in war.”

Ron

The Bible says: Psalm 42:2

“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

Do you feel discouraged, dry, and weak, as if God has disappeared and you’re merely surviving? At times, the Father allows you to face a season when you feel defeated and spiritually parched in order to draw you closer to Himself.

Although you might think the desert experiences of life would drive you farther from the Savior, but they can actually mature your faith in Him greatly, like a lost child looking for his parents, you seek Him desperately, listen intently for His voice, and long for His presence.

You also cast off anything that would hinder you from finding Him. In fact, more than likely you’ll discover that when you don’t feel the Father’s presence, it’s because you’ve unintentionally become focused on something other than Him. You are distracted and no longer drinking in His marvelous presence. He’s not your first priority, so He creates a thirst for Him in you.

So return to the Lord and enjoy Him. it may take time to rebuild your relationship, but be assured, those who seek Him “shall be satisfied” (Mathew 5:6).

Prayer: ‘Lord, I am thirsty for Your wonderful presence. Restore our fellowship and help me experience Your love, Amen’.

(We hear much about the courage and sacrifice of the founders of our Republic. However, there were others in recent years with just as much courage and sacrifice. Here is the story of four amazing ‘Men of God’ with such courage that they willingly gave their lives that four others could live. Please read about them below.)

On the frigid night of FEBRUARY 3, 1943, the overcrowded Allied ship U.S.A.T. Dorchester, carrying 902 servicemen, plowed through the dark, freezing waters near Greenland.

At 1:00am, a Nazi submarine fired a torpedo into the transport’s flank, killing many in the explosion and trapping others below deck. It sank in 27 minutes. The two escort ships, Coast Guard cutters Comanche and Escanaba, were able to rescue only 231 survivors.

In the chaos of fire, smoke, oil and ammonia, four chaplains calmed sailors and distributed life jackets:

George L. Fox, Methodist

Alexander D. Goode, Jewish

Clark V. Poling, Duch Reformed

John P. Washington, Roman Catholic

When there were no more life jackets, the four chaplains ripped off their own and put them on four young men. As the ship went down, survivors floating in rafts could see the four chaplains linking arms and bracing themselves on the slanting deck. They bowed their heads in prayer as they sank to their icy deaths.

Survivor Grady Clark wrote: “As I swam away from the ship, I looked back. The flares had lighted everything. The bow came up high and she slid under. The last thing I saw, the Four Chaplains were up there praying for the safety of Survivor the men. They had done everything they could. I did not see them again. They themselves did not have a chance without their life jackets.”

The Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba was able to rescue only 231 survivors from the Dorchester:

By an Act of Congress, July 14, 1960………The Four Chaplains Medal was created:

In 1998, Congress honored them by declaring February 3rd “Four Chaplains Day.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt acknowledged Protestants, Catholics, and Jews working together for liberty in his address at Madison Square Garden, October 28, 1940:  “Your government is working with representatives of Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish faiths. Without these three, all three of them, things would not be as easy.”

FDR stated January 31, 1938:  “There has been definite progress towards a spiritual reawakening. I receive evidences of this from all our Protestant Churches; I get it from Catholic priests and from Jewish rabbis as well.”

FDR stated December 6, 1933:  “Government guarantees to the churches, Gentile and Jewish, the right to worship God in their own way.”

In a Radio Address, November 4, 1940, FDR stated:  “Democracy is the birthright of every citizen, the white and colored; the Protestant, the Catholic, the Jew.”

On February 3, 1951, President Harry S. Truman dedicated the Chapel of the Four Chaplains, currently located at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

Truman said: “This interfaith shrine will stand through long generations to teach Americans that as men can die heroically as brothers so should they live together in mutual faith and goodwill.”

In 1984, the Chapel of the Four Chaplains gave an award recognizing the military chaplain team, made up of a Protestant minister, a Catholic priest, and a Jewish rabbi, who were present at the 1983 Beirut Bombing where fundamental Muslim terrorists blew up the U.S. Marine barracks, killing 241 U.S. Marines.

President Ronald Reagan memorialized them in a speech at the Baptist Annual Convention, April 13, 1984: “On that October day when a terrorist truck bomb took the lives of 241 marines, soldiers, and sailors at the airport in Beirut, one of the first to reach the tragic scene was a chaplain, the chaplain of our 6th Fleet, Rabbi Arnold E. Resnicoff. He said, ‘Screams of those injured or trapped were barely audible at first, as our minds struggled to grapple with the reality before us, a massive four-story building, reduced to a pile of rubble; dust mixing with smoke and fire, obscuring our view of the little that was left.

Trying to pull and carry those whose injuries appeared less dangerous in an immediate sense than the approaching fire or the smothering smoke. My kippa was lost. (That is the little headgear that is worn by rabbis.) The last I remember it, I’d used it to mop someone’s brow. Father Pucciarelli, the Catholic chaplain, cut a circle out of his cap, a piece of camouflaged cloth which would become my temporary head-covering. Somehow he wanted those marines to know not just that we were chaplains, but that he was a Christian and that I was Jewish.”

Reagan continued quoting Chaplain Rabbi Resnicoff: “The words from the prophet Malachi kept recurring to me, words he’d uttered some 2,500 years ago as he had looked around at fighting and cruelty and pain. ‘Have we not all one Father?’ he had asked. ‘Has not one God created us all?’ To understand the role of the chaplain, Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant, is to understand that we try to remind others, and perhaps ourselves as well, to cling to our humanity even in the worst of times. We bring with us the truth that faith not only reminds us of the holy in Heaven, but also of the holiness we can create here on Earth. We have within us the power to reflect as God’s creatures the highest values of our Creator. As God is forgiving and, merciful, so can we be.'”

Reagan stated January 31, 1983: “Let us come together, Christians and Jews, let us pray together. All of us, as Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, have a special responsibility to remember our fellow believers who are being persecuted in other lands. We’re all children of Abraham. We’re children of the same God.”

On February 7, 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower spoke from the White House for the American Legion ‘Back-to-God’ Program: “And we remember that, only a decade ago, aboard the transport Dorchester, four chaplains of four faiths together willingly sacrificed their lives so that four others might live.

Eisenhower continued: “Today as then, there is need for positive acts of renewed recognition that faith is our surest strength, our greatest resource. This ‘Back to God’ movement is such a positive act. Whatever our individual church, whatever our personal creed, our common faith in God is a common bond among us. Together we thank ‘the Power’ that has made and preserved us a nation. By the millions, we speak prayers, we sing hymns-and no matter what their words may be, their spirit is the same – ‘In God is Our Trust.'”

Another inspiring story of a Christian risking his life to save soldiers was combat medic Desmond Doss, as portrayed in the award-winning film Hacksaw Ridge (2016). Doss saved 75 soldiers during the Battle of Okinawa, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Yet another inspiring story was that of Chaplain William Thomas Cummings, who served with the U.S. Army in the Philippines during World War II. He was captured by the Imperial Japanese and died when his unmarked prisoner ship was sunk sailing to Japan on January 18, 1945. Earlier, while serving with the American troops during the Battle of Bataan, January 7 to April 9, 1942, Chaplain Father Cummings gave a stirring field sermon in which he declared: “There are no atheists in the foxholes.”

Eisenhower repeated these words in his address February 7, 1954: “As a former soldier, I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth — ‘that there are no atheists in the foxholes’. They know that in time of test and trial, we instinctively turn to God for new courage and peace of mind. All the history of America bears witness to this truth.

In the three centuries that separate the Pilgrims of the Mayflower from the chaplains of the Dorchester, America’s freedom, her courage, her strength, and her progress have had their foundation in faith.”

Ron

The Bible says Genesis 17: 1-2 (Emphasis Added)

“I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly”

Do not miss the pivotal words in the covenant between the Lord and Abrahan: “I will.” From the beginning, God took the full responsibility for fulfilling His promise. It was up to Him to give Abraham a son and multiply his descendants.

Have you asked the Father to help you in some area? Is His answer taking longer than you expected? Does the attainment of your hope seem impossible? Don’t make the terrible mistake of taking matters into your own hands. Sarah did so by offering her maidservant Hagar to Abraham, and Israel is still suffering because of her impatience.

Rather, remember that it’s “God who accomplishes all things” for you (Psalm 57:2). Abraham’s only responsibility was to follow the Lord obediently, and the same is true for you.

So stop trying to handle everything on your own. It’s His responsibility. Trust that the Father has wondrous plans for your life and that he will bring them about.

Memorial Day in America, as an annual observance, can be traced back to the end of the Civil War, a war in which over a half-million died. Southern women scattered spring flowers on graves of both northern Union and southern Confederate soldiers.

One of the places where it was first observed was Charleston, South Carolina, where a mass grave was uncovered of 267 Union soldiers who had died in a prison camp. On May 1, 1865, former slaves organized a parade, led by 2,800 singing black children, in which they prayed, read Bible verses, sang spirituals, and reburied the soldiers with honor as an act of gratefulness for their ultimate sacrifice which gave them freedom.

In 1868, General John A. Logan, commander of the Civil War veterans’ organization “The Grand Army of the Republic,” called for a Decoration Day to be observed annually on May 30.

An estimated 180,000 Black soldiers served in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Republican abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave a Decoration Day address at Arlington National Cemetery in 1871:

“We must never forget that the loyal soldiers who rest beneath this sod flung themselves between the nation and the nation’s destroyers.”

President James Garfield’s only executive order was in 1881 where he gave government workers May 30th off so they could decorate the graves of those who died in the Civil War.

In 1921, President Warren Harding had the remains of an unknown soldier killed in France during World War I buried in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington Cemetery.

Inscribed on the Tomb is the phrase: “HERE RESTS IN HONORED GLORY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER KNOWN BUT TO GOD.”

Since 1921, it has been the tradition for Presidents to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The number 21 being the highest salute, the sentry takes 21 steps, faces the tomb for 21 seconds, turns and pauses 21 seconds, then retraces his steps.

The number 21 is explained on the U.S. Army Center of Military History website (history.army.mil/index.html): “Warriors demonstrated their peaceful intentions placing their weapons in a position that rendered them ineffective.

Rendering a salute by cannon originated in the 14th century as firearms and cannons came into use. Since these early devices contained only one projectile, discharging them once rendered them ineffective.

Originally warships fired seven-gun salutes—the number seven probably selected because of its astrological and Biblical significance. The Bible states that God rested on the seventh day after Creation, that every seventh year was sabbatical and that the seven times seventh year ushered in the Jubilee year.

Land batteries, having a greater supply of gunpowder, were able to fire three guns for every shot fired afloat, hence the salute by shore batteries was 21 guns.

Early gunpowder, composed mainly of sodium nitrate, spoiled easily at sea, but could be kept cooler and drier in land magazines. When potassium nitrate improved the quality of gunpowder, ships at sea adopted the salute of 21 guns.

The 21-gun salute became the highest honor a nation rendered.

Great Britain, the world’s preeminent seapower in the 18th and 19th centuries, compelled weaker nations to salute first. Eventually, by agreement, the international salute was established at 21 guns, although the United States did not agree on this procedure until August 1875.”  

On Decoration Day, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge stated:  “There can be no peace with the forces of evil. Peace comes only through the establishment of the supremacy of the forces of good.  That way lies through sacrifice. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'”

The Memorial Day poem, “In Flanders Fields,” was composed during World War I, by a Canadian Expeditionary gunner and medical officer named John McCrae, who fought in the Second Battle of Ypres near Flanders, Belgium.

Describing the battle as a “nightmare,” as the enemy carried out one of the first chlorine gas attacks, McCrae wrote:

“For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds.  And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way.”

Finding one of his friends killed, McCrae helped bury him along with the other dead in a field.  Noticing the field covered with poppy flowers, he wrote:

“In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. if ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.”

Notable individuals who fought in World War I include:

Sergeant Alvin York, who single-handedly took out 35 machine guns and captured 132;

• John J. Pershing, General of the Armies;
• Douglas MacArthur, Brigadier General;
• George S. Patton, tank commander;
• Leonard Wood, future Army Chief of Staff;

Harry S Truman, artillery officer and future 33rd President;

• Eddie Rickenbacker, commander of 94th Areo Squadron;
• Quentin Roosevelt, a pilot, son of President Theodore Roosevelt, was shot down and died;
• Charles Whittlesey, commander of the “Lost Battalion” behind lines;
• Frank Luke -“balloon buster”

• Irving Berlin, composer of “God Bless America”;
• Edouard Izac, naval office captured on a U-Boat, who escaped;
• Henry Johnson of the “Harlem Hellfighters”;
• Dan Daly, Marine Sergeant charged and captured machine gun nests;
• Ernest Hemingway, author of A Farewell to Arms;
• J.R.R. Tolken, British author of The Lord of the Rings

• C.S. Lewis, British author of The Chronicles of Narnia.

One soldier was Orval William Epperson.

Born on a rugged Ozark farm near Anderson, Missouri, he fought in France, being assigned to the 338th Machine Gun Battalion 88th Division.

Upon returning to America, he married Therese DeBrosse, and had three children: Joan, Orval Wilford, and Tirzah, whose mother was a famous author.

Orval and Therese’s only son was Orval Wilford “Billy” Epperson.

He served in World War II as a bombardier on a B17 Flying Fortress, 525th Squadron, 379 Bomb Group A.P.O. 550 (#0-768946). 23-year-old “Billy” Epperson flew from Camp Crowder in southwest Missouri to Kimbolton, England. He had written a Mother’s Day note to his mom, tied it with a handkerchief to a small weight and dropped it from the plane as it flew over his hometown of Neosho, Missouri.

A neighbor got it and brought to his mother, who lived at 344 S. Hamilton. Little did either know that that would be the closest they would be again, as Billy was shot down by the Nazis over the English Channel near Holland on July 9, 1944.

His name is on the monument near Omaha Beach, at the Cimitière Amèrican de Normandie (in Colleville-sur-Mer, France) at the Killed in Action Wall (“Tablet of the Missing”).

On June 6, 1944 President Franklin Roosevelt offered a D-Day Prayer, which is now part of the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C., thanks to the effort led by Chris Long of the Ohio Christian Alliance, as documented in his book For Their Honor:

“My fellow Americans: I ask you to join with me in prayer:  Almighty God, Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our republic, our religion, and our civilization. Give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith. They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. We know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.”

In 1958, President Eisenhower placed soldiers in the tomb from World War II and the Korean War.  In 1968, one hundred years after the first observance, Decoration Day was moved to the last Monday in May.  In 1971, Decoration Day was renamed “Memorial Day.”

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan placed a soldier from the Vietnam War in the tomb.  DNA test later identified him as pilot Michael Blassie, whose A-37B Dragonfly was shot down near An Loc, South Vietnam. He had graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970, and prior to that, graduated from St. Louis University High School in 1966. 

                                                                                                                                        IIn 1998, Michael Blassie’s remains were reburied at Jefferson Memorial Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri.

In 2000, Congress passed The National Moment of Remembrance Act (Public Law 106-579), whereby on each Memorial Day, at 3:00pm, citizens should pause for a moment of prayer: “Congress finds that it is essential to remember and renew the legacy of Memorial Day, to pay tribute to individuals who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to the United States. Greater strides must be made to demonstrate appreciation for those loyal people whose values, represented by their sacrifices, are critical to the future of the United States, and to encourcitizens to dedicate themselves to the principles for which those heroes of the United States died. A symbolic act of unity to honor the men and women of the United States who died in the pursuit of freedom and peace as a day of prayer for permanent peace.”

Memorial Day grew to honor over 1.3 million service men and women who gave their lives defending America’s freedom in every war.

• Revolutionary War (1775-1783) 25,000;
• Barbary Wars (1801-1805; 1815) 45;
• War of 1812 (1812-1814) 20,000;
• Mexican-American War (1846-1848) 13,283;
• Civil War (1861-1865) 625,000;
• Spanish-American War (1898) 2,446;
• World War 1 (1917-1918) 116,516;
• World War 2 (1941-1945) 405,399;
• Korean War (1950-1953) 36,516;
• Vietnam War (1955-1975) 58,209;
• Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) 258;
• Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan (2001-2014) 2,356;
• Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2012) 4,489; and
• subsequent wars against Islamic terrorism, securing our borders, and in Ukraine.

At the Memorial Day Ceremony, May 31, 1993, President Bill Clinton remarked:  “The inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier says that he is ‘Known but to God.’ But that is only partly true. While the soldier’s name is known only to God, we know a lot about him. We know he served his country, honored his community, and died for the cause of freedom. And we know that no higher praise can be assigned to any human being than those simple words. In the presence of those buried all around us, we ask the support of all Americans in the aid and blessing of God Almighty.”

Charles Michael Province, U.S. Army, wrote the poem: “It is the Soldier, not the minister Who has given us freedom of religion. It is the Soldier, not the reporter Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the Soldier, not the poet Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the Soldier, not the campus organizer Who has given us freedom to protest. It is the Soldier, not the lawyer Who has given us the right to a fair trial. It is the Soldier, not the politician Who has given us the right to vote. It is the Soldier who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protester to burn the flag.”

Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary stated in its definition of “MEMORIAL”: “That which preserves the memory of something. A monument is a memorial of a deceased person, or of an event. The Lord’s supper is a memorial of the death and sufferings of Christ.”

Memorials are important in Scripture. The Lord told Moses in Exodus 12:  “Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel: In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house. Your lamb shall be without blemish. And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day, and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses.

For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and execute judgment and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you. And this day shall be unto you a MEMORIAL throughout your generations, an ordinance for ever.”

Memorial is mentioned in Joshua, chapter 4:  “When all the people were clean, they passed over Jordan. Joshua called twelve men out of every tribe. And Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of Jordan, and take ye up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder. That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones?

Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, and these stones shall be for a MEMORIAL unto the children of Israel for ever.”

In his Memorial Day Address, May 31, 1923, President Calvin Coolidge said: “Settlers came here with mixed motives. Generally defined, they were seeking a broader freedom. They were intent upon establishing a Christian commonwealth in accordance to the principle of self-government. It has been said that ‘God sifted the nations that He might send choice grain into the wilderness.'”

Coolidge was citing an Election Sermon given in Boston, April 29, 1669, by Massachusetts Governor Judge William Stoughton, who described the Puritans fleeing persecution in England to settle in the New World.

“God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness.”

Henry W. Longfellow used a similar line in his classic Courtship of Miles Standish:

“God had sifted three kingdoms to find the wheat for this planting.”

This was explained further in Benjamin Franklin Morris’ classic The Christian Life and Character of The Civil Institutions of The United States (1864): “The persecutions of the Puritans in England for non-conformity, and the religious agitations and conflicts in Germany by Luther, in Geneva by Calvin, and in Scotland by Knox, were the preparatory ordeals for qualifying Christian men for the work of establishing the civil institutions on the American continent. ‘God sifted’ in these conflicts ‘a whole nation that He might send choice grain over into the wilderness’; and the blood and persecution of martyrs became the seed of both the church and the state. It was in these schools of fiery trial that the founders of the American republic were educated and prepared for their grand Christian mission. They were trained in stormy times, in order to prepare them to establish the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty and of just systems of civil government.”

Concluding in his Memorial Day Address that America’s republic is worth preserving, President Calvin Coolidge stated May 31, 1923: “They had a genius for organized society on the foundations of piety, righteousness, liberty, and obedience of the law. Who can fail to see in it the hand of destiny? Who can doubt that it has been guided by a Divine Providence?”

Douglas MacArthur told West Point cadets, May 1962:

“The soldier, above all other men, is required to practice the greatest act of religious training-sacrifice. In battle and in the face of danger and death, he discloses those Divine attributes which his Maker gave when He created man in His own image. No physical courage and no brute instinct can take the place of Divine help which alone can sustain him. However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind.”

Ron

—

(This was one of the cruelest times in modern history. The Barbary Pirates were sending Europeans and even Americans to their slave markets. It finally was put to an end with U.S. ships and the amazing U.S. Marines Do read about it.) 

For centuries, tens of millions of Africans were sold at Islamic slave markets from Timbuktu on the Niger River, where the canoe meets the caravan, to Khartoum, to the Zanzibar coast on the Indian Ocean.  

In addition, over a million Europeans were captured and sold at Muslim slave markets in Morocco, Algiers, Tunisia and Libya.  Catholic Orders, such as the “Trinitarians” or “Mathurins,” would collect alms and ransom slaves.  

Notable ransomed were in 1607, St. Vincent DePaul, and in 1580, Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote de La Mancha, 1605, who wrote:  “They put a chain on me. I passed my life in that bano with several other(s) marked out as held to ransom. We suffered from hunger and scanty clothing. Nothing distressed us so much as seeing … unheard of cruelties my master inflicted upon the Christians.

Every day he hanged a man all with so little provocation. Turks acknowledged he did it merely for the sake of doing it.”  

Modern-day charities ransoming Christians from slavery in Africa and South Asia include ‘Exodus 51’ and ‘Christian Solidarity International’, supported by Eric Metaxas.  

In 1588, English and Dutch privateers defeated the invincible Spanish Armada.  

Privateers captured Spanish ships of gold and brought their treasures back to Queen Elizabeth’s England.   In 1604, King James I made a peace treaty with Spain banning English piracy, issuing a “Proclamation to Repress All Piracies and Depredations upon the Sea.”  

This essentially left privateers unemployed.  Some became lawless pirates, finding ports for their stolen goods along the Barbary coast.  A few even became accursed “renegado,” or Christians turned Turk, sharing their superior sailing skills with Muslim maritime marauders and directing ships, called corsairs, to attack North Atlantic trade.

 In 1617, 800 corsairs took 1,200 captives from Madeira, Portugal and sold them in the Muslim slave markets.  

In 1625, corsairs sailed up the Thames River and raided England, taking many Englishmen slaves to the Morroco slave markets.  

Giles Milton wrote in White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa’s One Million European Slaves, 2004, describing how Pellow was captured at age 11 and escaped 23 years later.  

The coast of Cornwall was raided with 60 villagers captured at Mount’s Bay and 80 at Looe, and carried away as slaves.  

They attacked Lundy Island in Bristol Channel and raised the standard of Islam, and by the end of 1625, over 1,000 English subjects were taken to the slave markets of Morocco.  

That same year, Pilgrims in Massachusetts sent beaver skins and dried fish back to England for trade, but their ship was captured by Turkish pirates.  Pilgrim Governor William Bradford wrote in History of the Plymouth Settlement, 1650:  “They were well within the English channel, almost in sight of Plymouth. But. there she was unhapply taken by a Turkish man-of-war and carried off to Saller, Morocco, where the captain and crew were made slaves. Now with the ship taken by the Turks all trade was dead.”

 In 1627, Ottoman Algerian pirate Murat Reis the Younger raided Iceland and carried away 800. One captured girl was made a concubine in Algeria but was ransomed by Denmark’s King Christian IV.  

In 1631, Algerian pirates herded “The Stolen Village” of Baltimore, Ireland, onto ships. Only two ever returned. Thomas Osborne Davis wrote in “The Sack of Baltimore,” 1895:  “The yell of ‘Allah!’ breaks above the shriek and roar; O’ blessed God! the Algerine is lord of Baltimore.” Des Ekin wrote in The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates (2008): “Here was not a single Christian who was not weeping and who was not full of sadness at the sight of so many honest maidens and so many good women abandoned to the brutality of these barbarians.”

The History of Barbary and its Corsairs, 1637, recorded that in 1634, Trinitarian priest Pierre Dan went to Algeria and witnessed “piteous” Irish families split apart at slave markets, never to see one-another again.  

Joseph Wheelan wrote in Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror, 2004: “As soon as Europeans fell into the raiders’ hands, the captives were stripped of their clothes, given rags to wear, and either were put in irons or made to work on the ships. 

Handsomest male slaves were usually chosen as palace pages, and the prettiest women were sent to Constantinople as gifts to the sultan.  The rest were auctioned in the slave markets, where buyers examined the prisoners as they would any domestic animal.”  

Kidnapped Englishman Francis Knight wrote in A Relation of Seven Years of Slavery under Turks of Algiers, 1640:  “I arrived in Algiers, that city fatal to all Christians and the butchery of mankind.”  

The Sultan of Morocco was Moulay Ismail. He had a harem of 500, mostly captured European women, who bore him a record 1,042 children. He had 25,000 white slaves build him a palace at Meknes.  Moulay Ismail was described by John Windus in A Journey to Mequinez, 1825: “His trembling court assemble, which consists of blacks, whites, tawnies and his favorite,Jews, all barefooted. He is known by the color of the habit that he wears, yellow being observed to be his killing color; from all of which they calculate whether they may hope to live twenty-four hours longer.  

He (rides) out of town attended by fifteen or twenty thousand blacks with whom he diverts himself—by throwing—the lance, knotted cords for whipping.”  

Abolitionist Republican Senator Charles Sumner wrote White Slavery in the Barbary States, 1853:  “The Saracens, with the Koran and the sword, potent ministers of conversion, next broke from Arabia, as the messengers of a new religion, and pouring along these shores. Algiers, for a long time the most obnoxious place in the Barbary States of Africa, the chief seat of Christian slavery, the wall of the barbarian world.”

 In November 12, 1644, the Massachusetts General Court, as recorded in The Pirates of the New England Coast, 1630-1730, stated:   “Turkish pirates meaning the Algerines, were a constant danger to shipping in trading with Spain.”  

In 1669, Captain William Foster sailed the Dolphin out of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and was captured by Barbary pirates.  

John Hull, first mint-master of Massachusetts Bay, recorded: “October 21, 1671, We received intelligence that William Foster, master of a small ship, was taken by the Turks as he was going to Bilboa, Spain, with fish.”  

Cotton Mather wrote in Magnalia Christi Americana, 1702: “There was a Godly gentleman of Charlestown, one Mr. Foster, who with his son, was taken captive by Turkish enemies.” Rev. John Eliot of Roxbury, “the Apostle to the Indians,” led his congregation in prayer that Moroccan Prince Moulay Rashid would release Foster.

Mather wrote:  “Much prayer was employed, both privately and publicly, by the good people here, for the redemption of that gentleman. But we were at last informed, that the bloody Prince, in whose dominions he was now a slave, was resolved that in his lifetime no prisoner should be released. The distressed friends of this prisoner now concluded, our hope is lost! Upon this, Rev. Eliot, in some of his next prayers, before a very solemn congregation begged:  “Heavenly Father, work for the redemption of thy poor servant Foster, and if the Prince which detains him will not dismiss him as long himself lives, Lord, we pray thee to kill that cruel Prince, and glorify thy self upon him.”  

Shortly after, April 9, 1672, Prince Moulay Rashid fell from his horse and died in Marrakesh at the age of 42.  

Cotton Mather added:  “The poor captive gentleman, Foster, quickly returns to us that had been mourning for him as a lost man, and brings us news, that the Prince which had hitherto held him, was come to an untimely death, by which means he was now set at liberty.”  

A Symbol Born in Battle – Long before it became a gleaming piece of every Marine Officer’s dress uniform to this very day, the Mameluke sword was earned in the heat of combat—not on American soil, but halfway across the world, in a desert kingdom where Marines proved their mettle and wrote the lines of their legendary Anthem (“To the stores of Tripoli”).

The year was 1805. The young United States was locked in a brutal conflict with the Barbary pirates of North Africa. American merchant ships were being attacked, their crews captured and held for ransom. The solution? A daring mission that would take US Marines deep into enemy territory, farther than they had ever gone before.

Led by a Marine officer named Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon, a  detachment of Marines set out from Alexandria, Egypt. With  a group of fellow Marines and a mixed force of Arab allies, they began a grueling 600-mile march across the desert toward the city of Derna, on the coast of modern-day Libya. Derna was highly fortified along the coast to repel any attack from the sea, for they figured no attack could possibly come from that formidable desert.

It was a bold and risky operation—outnumbered, undersupplied, and deep in unfamiliar terrain. But on April 27, 1805, O’Bannon and his Marines stormed out of the desert for the Battle of Derna. Against the odds, they seized the heavily fortified city in the name of the United States. It was the first time the American flag was raised in victory on foreign soil, and it would be a defining moment for the Corps.

And it stopped that horrible slave trade forever.  God bless those brave U.S. Marines!

Ron

The Bible says: Colossians 1:9 NIV

“Ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives.”

Do you find that knowing God’s will feels like a constant struggle? Do you weigh the pros and cons of your decisions, look for signs of His direction, but then continue to wonder if you’re truly making choices that honor Him?

Friend, understanding God’s will for your life is not as ambiguous as you may think. The Lord wants you to obey Him—He eagerly seeks to diredt your path. So when you’re walking with Him, He provides the wisdom you need for every step.

But how do you ensure you’re staying in close fellowship with the Father? First give yourself to Him completely, undertanding that you are His beloved child and He would never steer you wrong. Second, refuse to be conformed to the world’s standards or follow its strategies to achieve your goals. Third, be transformed by allowing the Holy Spirit to change the way you think.

Finally, trust that the God who saved you is able to teach you the way you should go. He will not fail you. Trust Him.

The Bible says: Philippians 3:8

“I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”

What is it that consumes your thoughts today? What holds the utmost place of prominence in your life? Your answers will say a great deal about what’s truly important to you.

But He warned, the frustrations and discouragement you face often have more to do with what you’re pursuing than anything else. Perhaps you desire to be loved or respected—to be appreciated and accepted for who you are. Maybe you yearn to feel whole, safe, or free from burdens. So you chase the goals, objects, and people who seem to answer your profound need.

But friend, these misplaced priorities will rob you of peace, energy, and joy. It is God alone who deserves the highest place of honor in your life. Do you spend time with Him daily, seeking His face and deepening your intimacy with Him? Do you pursue Him with greater passion than everything else?

If not, you will be disappointed. Nothing is as wonderful or worthy as He is. And nothing can satisfy your soul as He will. 

The Bible says: Amos 5:6

“Seek the Lord that you may live.”

Do you desire a release from the stress you’re experiencing? Do you wish something would quiet your fears or give you a fresh perspective on your struggles? If so, meditating on the Word of God can revolutionize your life.

The Father wants you to relate to Him—to be quiet before him so He can speak to you and teach you His ways. Unfortunately, you will miss His activity, direction, and intervention in your circumstances if you don’t take the opportunity to listen to Him and know Him through His Word.

Of course life is busy and you may think you don’t really have time to sit in His presence. But realize that when you forfeit your relationship with God, you lose much more than just time. You miss His joy, peace power, love, and wisdom—and even the very purposes for which you were created.

Friend, the Father loves you intimately—with a depth that can never be measured. So spend time with Him and give Him the opportunity to have you all to Himself. You’ll surely find all that you’ve been longing for.