As I watched the “May First March of the Illegal Immigrants” and listened to their televised comments, I was visited frequently by one woman’s statement that this was not just America’s country this was God’s country and Americans were not entitled to keep it just for themselves. The inanity of the statement makes one want to simply ignore it which I did for a long while. The realization that today such inanity passes for reason among so many of our citizens requires a response and I think Veterans Day is the time to respond.

For those who don’t believe in God, you may simply skip this paragraph for, indeed, this is God’s country. It is, in fact, God’s universe. God parses His universe to various societies and their governments. All of these exist to benefit the purposes of God. This is all laid out clearly in the Bible complete with examples.

Man, being man though, is rarely satisfied with what he has and wants what his neighbor has as well. This generally leads to war and possession of the nation is retained (or lost) at a tremendous price. America, too, has paid this price many times during the past few centuries. A price paid by the men and women who responded to our nation’s call for someone to defend what is ours. I am one of them. We were just citizens one day and America’s defenders the next.

We are America’s warriors, past and present, who have given and continue to give this nation whatever is demanded of us by chance or Providence. We don’t do this for other nations. We do this for ourselves, our families and our fellow Americans. We do this to preserve our culture, our freedoms and our nation. We go because our nation asks us to go and trust that our willingness will not be squandered but is truly needed to preserve our nation. We leave that determination to others.

We have paid with well over a million lives lost in wars to establish and preserve our nation. Many, many millions more have paid with limbs and minds for the same purpose. We have all paid with our willingness to confront our nation’s enemies and the horrors that come with it and the nightmares that come later. Then there are the “others” of us. These numbers do not include non-combat losses; those who were lost because they were willing and served. Not all of us are called to the fight but we all know our mission.

So why does America only belong to Americans? It’s because we paid for it.

Who am I? I am one member of a family whose men and women have served continuously from June of 1941 through today with commitments into the future. We have lost comrades and are not strangers to what this commitment may require of us. We are willing because we know that, without us and those like us, our nation will be forfeit. So far, we celebrate my family’s service to America only on Veteran’s Day but we also know, as we serve the future as we have the past, it is only a matter of time.