001Heat. Heat. [music] Heat. Now the uh the band will lead us uh in the national anthem. Good [applause] job. Thank you. Now the choir will uh lead us and God bless the USA. If tomorrow things were all my [singing] life and I had to start again just my children and [singing] my wife. I thank my [music] lucky stars to be living [singing] here today [music] where the flag still stands for freedom and they can't take that away. And I'm proud to be an American [singing and music] where at least I know I'm free. And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me. And I'll gladly stand up next to [music] you and defend her [singing] still today. Cuz there ain't [music] no doubt I love this land. God [singing] bless
002the USA. From the Lakes of [music and singing] Minnesota to the hills of Tennessee, across the plains of Texas, [singing and music] to From Detroit down to Houston and New York to LA, [music] where there's pride in every American heart and it's time we stand and say stand [music] to be an American where at least [music] I know I'm free and I won't forget the and who died who gave that right to me. And I'm glad [music] we stand up next to you and [music] still today. There ain't [singing] no doubt I love this [music] land. Lord bless the USA. [music] America shine his grace on his grace on me and thy good with brotherhood [music] to shining. [music and singing] Americ [music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music] [singing and music] bless the >> [music] >>
003God bless the US. [music] [applause] One of the one of the best songs ever written. And let's give them another round of applause. That was beautiful. [applause] Now, I'd like to uh bring up to the microphone here our keynote speaker for this morning. Uh Mr. Mr. Pastor David S. There we go. It is an honor and a privilege to be here and to speak to all of you. I want to thank the student council for the breakfast this morning and the coffee. Many of the students came in looking for coffee and you didn't get any. Sorry, but I'm not sorry. But it is an honor to be here today. I want to welcome all of our students, our faculty, and our staff. the guests who have come here today and especially the veterans who are
004present seated here in the white chairs and many others who didn't follow the rules and are sitting in other places. Many of you are probably going to be bored for the next couple of minutes simply because there's some old guy who looks like Santa Claus up here talking and that's okay. I would have been bored too except for one thing. I came from a family of veterans. My father was a veteran and my uncles were veterans. I grew up watching John Wayne and Clint Eastwood war movies. And from a very early age, my goal was to join the military. I wanted to be in the army like my dad and my uncles had been. So in 1988, actually 1987, before I even graduated high school, I joined the United States Army Reserves in order to
005serve my country and do what my family had done. It was an honor and a privilege for me to do that. I got to jump out of airplanes. I got to blow stuff up. It was exciting. Then one day I was in college and I got a phone call. Desert Storm had broken out and my unit was being activated. And so we went to Fort Benning, Georgia as part of our job to train troops through basic training and send them on to the front lines. You may have wondered why we all sat here for a few minutes after the band played and it was just that awkward silence of nothing until finally the color guard came forward. We were waiting for 11:00. Now, as veterans, we understand the idea of hurry up and wait. And
006so we waited till 11 o'clock because it was the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month that what was known as Armmesus, the Armmesus day started ending World War I. There was a lot of death, a lot of destruction that came from World War I. And it was nicknamed the war to end all wars. Well, we haven't done very good with that. Obviously, that's not the case. There have been many wars since, but this is a day that has evolved to where we recognize all of our veterans who have served in the military throughout the years. But it was the 11th day, the 11th hour, the 11th month in 1918 when World War I ended. Many of those soldiers came home with a condition they called shell shock. Today we call it
007PTSD. Because as soldiers serve, they get wounds. They get bullet holes. They get limbs removed. Bad things happen. However, there are other wounds that veterans have. They have bad backs, bad knees, headaches. They have all kinds of hidden wounds that they carry with them because of all the bad things they have seen and experienced. War movies make armed conflict look exciting and glamorous, and armed conflict is anything but. Coming from World War I were two veterans whom I have great admiration for. CS Lewis and JRR Tolken. Both served in World War I. Tolken of course later wrote Lord of the Rings which is one of my favorite books. And if you read Lord of the Rings or if you watch the movies, you will notice that creatures like the hobbits and elves and others, the
008wizards and others kind of shun technology and they don't like machines. They don't like progression of things like that because Tolken realized that the more advanced we get technologically, the easier it is for us to kill and the more efficient we become at destruction. And so war is not a pretty thing. My father served in the Korean War and he suffered unknowingly and undiagnosed with PTSD. He had anxiety and there were just certain things we couldn't do around my father. I was never allowed to scare my father because it freaked him out. Loud noises would freak him out because soldiers carry wounds. And as you look around at the veterans who are here today, they'll probably never talk about many of the wounds and many of the things that they faced because it's not pretty
009and it's not a good memory. But one thing that the veterans will do is what Nathaniel sang about. They will defend this country still today. If word came, many of us would leave this room with canes, walkers, wheelchairs, limps, bad backs, headaches, and all to defend the country. Simply so that you can remain free. so that you can sit here today and live a life that is free from war. Live a life that is free from this pain. Every veteran in here would gladly do it all again simply because that's who we are and that's what we do. Now, the military is not for everyone, but there are many here today who are going to join the military. Some who have even already signed the contract and are just waiting for graduation before they go.
010Many of your friends, your brothers, your sisters have joined the military in order to defend your rights and your freedoms. And so I want you to do a couple of things in order to honor veterans. And as a pastor, I can go to scripture. Book of Romans tells us to give honor to whom honor is due. And honor is due to veterans because of the service that they have performed for you. And so I want you to do a couple of things. I want you to volunteer here in Union County. Volunteer with different organizations. Help each other out. Volunteer with veteran for focused organizations. When you get old enough, vote. Every vet veteran in here defended this country so that you had the right to vote. You may not vote the way I do. I
011may not vote the way you do. That's not the point. The point is the veterans defended your right to participate in your government. And so we want you to vote to all the adults. Teach the younger generations about service. That is one of the things that you guys unfortunately have to do before you graduate is your senior exits. I know how much you love those. But part of that is community service. And all that does is get you the practice of learning to serve, to take care of those around you. And that is what veterans do. And so you can honor them by serving and by helping. One last thing, when you get the opportunity, thank a veteran. All you have to say is thank you for your service. Thank you for serving our country.
012None of the veterans here today volunteered because of the money. None of them volunteered today to earn medals. None of them volunteered to serve this country for anything other than the honor of serving this country. And so I want to say to all of our veterans, thank you for your service. Thank you for the sacrifice that you made. to leave, to go, and to receive those wounds so that we could remain free, so that we could live our lives. And so, thank you. And I just want to close by saying, God bless America and may God bless our veterans. Let's do that again. That was that was beautiful. [applause] Now the the uh high school choir is going to going to lead us in in the tribute to the military branches. When you hear your
013familiar tune, stand up and uh be recognized. until we meet once more. Wishing you a happy voyage. >> [applause] [music] [applause and cheering] [music] >> meet [singing] our thunder boys with one terrible roar. iname shed [music] his grace on Oh, beautiful for [music and singing] her group in liber. America God thy God thwist in Every day is [music] [applause] now the High school band will lead us in taps. Officer of the day. Retrieve the colors. Once again like to thank everybody for being here today and thank all the veterans that came. And there's one or two veterans in here I think are older than I but not too many. But I just want to say a couple things here for all you kids. If you're not sure what you want to do after high school,
014there's a lot of opportunities in all the branches of the service. And give it some thought. God bless America. We'll be dismissed. [applause] [applause]