I found the song that would be this thread's musical theme .

Thank you John < Elwood Sully > for sending this video & this hauntingly beautiful song


I think of it & sing the song as i am out & about on my sacred mountain bike rides




Please Remember Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nptA5uj6ZRY&NR=1



by Loreena McKennitt -



http://www.xs4all.nl/~josvg/cits/lm/lorecd88.html




Dante's prayer



When the dark wood fell before me
And all the paths were overgrown
When the priests of pride say there is no other way
I tilled the sorrows of stone


I did not believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the light of the stars


Chorus:
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the dark night seems endless
Please remember me


Then the mountain rose before me
By the deep well of desire
From the fountain of forgiveness
Beyond the ice and the fire


Chorus


Though we share this humble path, alone
How fragile is the heart
Oh give these clay feet wings to fly
To touch the face of the stars


Breathe life into this feeble heart
Lift this mortal veil of fear
Take these crumbled hopes, etched with tears
We'll rise above these earthly cares


Chorus


Please remember me
Please remember me, ...

Thank you Rapunzel for your faithfulness and prayer for our Military. May God Bless you!

Let us not forget the GREATEST SOLIDER ever...JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD!!! He paid the ULTIMATE PRICE to set us free!!! Thank You Lord!!! GLORY BE TO GOD!!!

Glory be to God Who sits on the Throne of Righteousness

Yes, Thank you so much I appreciate your appreciation

I receive the blessings & i send some your way too

May God Bless Our Troops & Keep them safe always

Bless Our Beloved Families & the Homeland that they fight for



Arms of the angel Fallen hero's tribute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6TfTC5opwc&feature=related

Tribute Song - 10,000 Miles Away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPsPZMvC3yY&feature=related


Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0gQEymR9PQ&feature=related



Tribute to all fallen soldiers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WZM2OU1aSo&feature=related

This is such a beautiful poem



Pray for the Guardians of Freedom

I will never bow, I will never falter.
I will stand firm, like the rock of Gibraltar.
Though storms may come and winds may howl.
I have stood for freedom and I stand there now.
Freedom isn’t free and its cost must be paid.
With blood, sweat and tears, I, will ply my trade.

Though our enemies be many and may come near.
The sanctity, of your home, I will protect and hold dear.
I will stand through hottest day and darkest night.
For my cause is your freedom, which is just and right.
I ask but little when much I may need.
When you prepare for sleep would You, pray for me?

Lonely and far from home still I stand.
A world away in a distant desert land.
When you think of me shed no tears.
For I believe in my cause, your freedom, I hold dear.
Freedoms cost, many of us, have and will pay.
But without our freedom , what is life anyway?

As you prepare for sleep, ready for slumber.
Remember me, one of a great number.
We stand tonight on freedoms frontier.
To protect the children, you hold so dear.
When praying is tough and times are hard.
Please remember to pray for us who are on guard.



By James Darnell







Keep Our Awesome Troops ever safe & close to you , Oh God..


They are the Soldiers of goodness in the Army of the Lord


Let no weapon that is ever formed against them prosper


Preserve & Protect the Guardians of our Freedom

This morning we had our monthly "Everybody Comes to" meeting at work.
About mid-way through it, they called one of the women up onto the stage. I knew she's getting ready to be deployed again, but hadn't heard that today was her last day at work.

As I sit here now, and had I have known she was going to get called up there.. I would have called us Vets to attention, and saluted her. There are about 40 Vets that I work with, and we would have loved showing her "The Love".

I'm sure Natasha would have been happy with us doing that. If only..


Natasha, my Sister in Arms.. You take care of yourself while you're gone off to Afghanistan, and don't take any flack from any Bars. You're the S**T, my friend, and we all want you back intact. May the Lord keep his eye on you whilst you're away, just like He has for both Jorge, and Adam, while they've been deployed.

I heard yesterday about 3 more Illinois National Guard soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Today I see their names. And now, I am deeply saddened on two levels. I worked at Cook County jail for almost 9 years, and one of the soldiers killed also worked there, so he is, not was.. He is twice my Brother.

Derwin Williams was known to say he had his family, God and the Guard.

"He was crazy about the Guard," said Lloyd Wilson, a longtime neighbor of Williams' family in the Beverly community. "He used to tell me all the time, 'I got family, I got God and I got the Guard.' "

1st Lt. Derwin Williams was killed Monday in Afghanistan after his vehicle hit a roadside bomb. All four occupants died, said his wife, Felicia Williams, who got the news at their Glenwood home Monday night. He had been a guardsman for 16 years and lately worked as a drill instructor for the Cook County Sheriff's boot camp.

And he was supposed to come home in August, she said.

Williams is the 15th casualty from the Illinois Army National Guard's 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team since their deployment to Afghanistan, and the 31st death the Illinois National Guard has suffered in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was Williams' second deployment. He was in Iraq from January 2004 to March 2005 with the 3625th Maintenance Company based in North Riverside .

Also killed in the bombing was Spc. Chester Hosford , 35, of Ottawa, Ill., and two other soldiers whose names have not yet been released by the Defense Department.

"It is with a heavy heart that we have to say farewell to two more fallen heroes of the Illinois Army National Guard," said Maj. Gen. William Enyart, adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard. "The deployment of the 33rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team has been tough on all of us, especially on the families of these heroes. As we get through this difficult time, we have to remember the honor and bravery of 1st Lt. Williams and Spc. Hosford. I am saddened by this loss yet so proud of the soldiers they were and the service they provided to this country."

Derwin Williams graduated from Morgan Park High School in 1986, where he played football and ran track. He was one of Dorothy Williams' four children raised in Chicago's Beverly community. He last saw his family in January, when they buried his father.

No one answered the door at the little white bungalow Wednesday morning. The family was in Delaware, meeting the casket at the Dover Air Force base.

He was married with two stepdaughters, 18 and 22; two daughters, 9 and 19; and a son, 8, according to the Guard.

His youngest sister, Jackie, and her husband also are in the Illinois Army National Guard, stationed in Champaign, Wilson said.

Dorothy Williams had been living on her own since her husband died in January, Wilson said.

"She's a church lady," he said. "She does everything she can around here in the community.

"It's just sad."

No details are yet available about funeral arrangements.

You are so precious John I love you Dear Man

The people you work with, are very fortunate to know you

You love them so much and are so faithful to your friends

I will keep your friend & Co~worker Natasha in my prayers

I'm sure she will carry your love in her heart always

and she will think often of the encouragement you gave her

before she embarks on this really heavy mission ,

I'm sure it takes all of the strength & intestinal fortitude

that someone can muster up before deploying to Only God Knows where

I remember the look in the eyes of the young soldier

whom i met in the airport who was getting ready to deploy

that look spoke such depth of emotion to me,


I will never forget him

God Bless Natasha & All of our Soldiers

out there in the middle of all of the heat

laying their fragile young lives down for us

Oh God this is not just lip service...

please hear our prayers & rain down mercy on your people

Oh God...this news is so hard to take

Sully, This is so difficult for you , I am soo sooo sorry , Honey


My immediate family is not directly involved now

yet they were directly involved & so many lives have been lost

but this tragedy is happening to all of mankind

and to those noble soldiers who are there in our places


& it would take a heartless soul to not be deeply effected


seeing the lives of our soldiers & the innocent babies & children & other innocents


of those countries being taken waay too soon & so brutally too

& i still grieve so much for all the lives of those lost


no matter whose kids they are , for we are all God's Children



May we never forget the innocent victims of war

this is beautiful ...The Star Spangled Banner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvBFkgErV9I&NR=1



http://www.bornagainamerican.org/about.html

Born Again American
is committed to the rebirth and re-expression of citizenship through informed and thoughtful activism. It is an initiative of Declare Yourself, a national non-partisan, non-profit (501(c)3) organization dedicated to increasing young voter participation and civic involvement. Declare Yourself’s on-line voter registration tool has been used by almost four million people since 2004. Declare Yourself grew out of the 2003’s Declaration of Independence Road Trip that toured an original 1776 copy of the Declaration to schools, town halls, and other locations all over the country.

About the Video
Our founder, TV producer and philanthropist Norman Lear, was talking with Academy Award-winning songwriter Keith Carradine one night, and the Born Again American video was, well, born. It took the efforts of Director Mark Johnson of Playing for Change, Producer Brent Miller, and 16 performers and two choruses to bring Keith’s song to life in 14 iconic locations around the USA. The singers and musicians, non-professionals all, were chosen because they are living the lyrics in these troubled times, not just performing them.






The Star Spangled Banner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star-Spangled_Banner


Bruce Springsteen - Star Spangled Banner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A3VA9huIp8&feature=related




Marvin Gaye sings American National Anthem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRvVzaQ6i8A


O! say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!














thank you Oh God & Our Mighty Troops for protecting our Freedom

Look at this . .just look at this ..

A cross in the center of the stars

I wear my sons dogtags every single day. I miss him so.

I saw this morning all the names of many soldiers killled in Afghanistan and Iraq. Too many...too many. One from Oklahoma.

In the last few weeks 7 killed in Iraq were from my sons unit.One of his friends whom he deployed with was to be in one of those humvies...and didn't for one reason or another and it was his vehicle that was blown up and much more. There were three, was supposed to be four.
Continue to pray for all who serve.

For all who served, sacrificed and love our Flag.

Oh God Please put an end to war once and for all


Bring this world's leaders to their knees in humbleness

let them cry out to you for forgiveness for what they have allowed


Let the blood of our fallen soldiers be forever on their hands


until they beg you for mercy & for a total change of heart


& for new directions with love and peace as their utmost goal

Amen ...thank you soo much Auburn Girl

For Our Beloved Troops who place themselves beween us & the enemy

My Love of Country


There's a love for which I can't hide,
it comes from deep down inside.
A passion that burns so bright,
that for it I'm willing to fight.

This Great Country in which I live,
where some with their life did give.
So we can hold our heads up high,
and thank those that happened to die.

For our freedom has been attacked,
but our spirit won't ever be cracked.
So when our country comes into danger
it off to war where we're no stranger.

Our pride and desire won't pail,
for our troops will always prevail.
America always seems to be blessed
with patriotism that's amongst the best.

No, we will never go run and hide,
no matter with whom we'll collide.
So remember to what I will say,
don't every bet against the U.S. of A.


By Bernard Howe





Prayers for the souls of Our Fallen Marines


& Prayers for all other Soldiers & their families

Majestic Flight


Beautiful eagles go flying through the air,
On another majestic flight without a care.
Wings spread out wide and so gracefully,
For all who will look their beauty to see.

Our symbol of freedom you always stay,
From your chosen path you do not stray.
Never meant to be tamed by mortal man,
To be flying forever freely o’er this land.

Always so very proud as you glide above,
A sign of freedom Americans all know of.
To remain completely free to fly as you do,
As if all of the heavens belong to just you.

May you always fly where we all can see,
May you always soar high with dignity.
Safe from those who would try to do harm,
God watches over you with a loving arm.

To continue always flying forever free,
In 1782 a sign of America’s own decree.
America home of the free and the brave,
Our flag of stars and stripes proudly wave.

So many symbols people choose to ignore,
No longer free to mention God anymore.
I still can not believe what has come to be,
To this land which is suppose to be free.

Courts are now deciding things for man,
Was this really a part of the original plan.
The Declaration of Independence stated,
Words which now have been desecrated.

Endowed by our creator with certain rights,
Over centuries for which we still must fight.
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,
But everywhere about us our land is a mess.

Please bring back all of our symbols of peace,
Give back all Americans complete release.
Able to watch the mighty eagle fly so high,
To freely praise God, our creator in the sky.

Please don’t burn the American flag anymore,
If you don’t like it here, then leave our shore.
Let true peace and order be restored once more,
Give us our Independence like we had before.



Brenda Sparkman