26-year vet of the Armed Forces, and his perspective on the Mosque controversy

Cut-and-pasted from a posting on Reddit
LINK

My dad spent 26 years in the Armed Services as part of Strategic Air Command. He's become a bit of a poet in his golden years. Today he sent me this:
_
In Arlington we lay to rest
our bravest and our very best.
We send our children off to war
defending what we soon ignore.
_
“You’re free to worship,” so we say.
“But if you’re muslim, go away.”
Is this what they were dying for:
Intolerance, and nothing more?
_
Must one be christian to obtain
the liberties that we proclaim?
These soldiers died for liberty.
They didn’t die for bigotry.
_
So look upon this hallowed field,
not only crosses are revealed.
For you’ll see stars and crescents too.
They also sacrificed for you.
_
In Arlington we lay to rest
our bravest and our very best.
They knew what they were dying for.
It’s something that we can’t ignore.
Joe G

Your father is a great poet and thinker...

That's all I can say, as words are not necessary to get the point...

thanks for sharing this,

Magnum

Wow.
That is so fitting in the situation going on today in this country. My baby brother is in the Army, third tour overseas-- first two in Iraq, now in Afghanistan. And when it comes to thinking about this country, the history, the men and women that have given their lives, this poem truly sums up what it should all be about.
We've lost focus in this country. We are too concerned with being 'better,' 'bigger,' & 'right-er.'
The problem is, such a thing does not exist.
The potential being wasted in this land due to bigotry is shameful.
Thank you for posting this. It gives me a little hope for the human condition.

good stuff.

I'm sick of lunatics talking about honor and respect when they try to deny the building of this mosque. I lost a couple Muslim brothers-in-arms in the Middle-East, both fought as bravely and heroically as any soldier I have ever encountered. Is it a slap in the face to build a place of worship in the name of our hard-fought freedom from RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION!?

Could you wackos be any more disrespectful to Muslim-Americans who have fought and died for this country?

Could you wackos squat and drop a bigger load of crap on our constitutionally-guaranteed religious freedoms?

The fact that a bunch of Muslim Soldiers, Marines, Seaman and Airman haven't come by the protests and kicked the crap out of every one of those ignorant bastards shows a lot more respect than the gutless, idiotic, racist and confused morons who are picketing against this mosque have shown.

Hooah

Is your father a Muslim?

That is some good flowing poetry with a message of truth!

reply to post by Lionel


What does his father being muslim or not have to do with this?

Originally posted by Lionel
Is your father a Muslim?

Just to be clear - I should have reformatted the posting - the whole thing was cut-and-pasted from the link at Reddit. It is not in any way MY work, nor was it my dad.

That being said, it doesn't matter what religious belief the OP's father was. He fought for the right of religious freedom for ALL.

Originally posted by Shark VA84
good stuff.

I'm sick of lunatics talking about honor and respect when they try to deny the building of this mosque. I lost a couple Muslim brothers-in-arms in the Middle-East, both fought as bravely and heroically as any soldier I have ever encountered. Is it a slap in the face to build a place of worship in the name of our hard-fought freedom from RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION!?

Could you wackos be any more disrespectful to Muslim-Americans who have fought and died for this country?

Could you wackos squat and drop a bigger load of crap on our constitutionally-guaranteed religious freedoms?

The fact that a bunch of Muslim Soldiers, Marines, Seaman and Airman haven't come by the protests and kicked the crap out of every one of those ignorant bastards shows a lot more respect than the gutless, idiotic, racist and confused morons who are picketing against this mosque have shown.

Hooah

I don't where today's military got that hooah garbage. It is absolutely the dumbest sound I have ever heard coming out out of a soldier's mouth. What is wrong with "Airborne", "Ranger", "Recon". When I went to jump school if one Recon got pushups the rest did it with him. They always yelled recon when the finished.

If you can get off you emotional tirade for a moment, have a rational discussion, listen for a few moments and drop YOUR intolerance you may learn why there are so many who oppose Cordoba House. Anyway, yes there are muslims serving but as we have seen at Ft. Hood the military turns a blind eye to any potential danger they may pose. I have no idea what unit you served in and it doesn't matter. The objection to the Cordoba house is that it will be taken as a sign of conquest throughout the islamic world. No one is trying to deny anyone the right to worship. What they are saying is, don't celebrate islam next to the site where so many died in the name of islam. Are all muslims terrorists, No, and no one is saying they are. There are probably many muslims who just want to get on with their lives but there are all too many who want to institute sharia law around the world. It is a question of how. However, when the 9/11 footage aired around the world there were celebrations in the streets of islamic countries. Since mohammed the methods of imposing Sharia have varied depending on the strength of islam. Sharia is an all encompassing approach to life that includes sex, food, art, business, education, prayer, manners, speech, and how to think and not to think. There is no aspect of life that is outside the power of Sharia -- religion, politics, ethics, and culture included. Afghanistan used to be a Buddhist civilization. Who knows the Buddhist history of Afghanistan? For all intents and purposes it does not exist. We ignore at our peril the history of how Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, North Africa, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq went from being Christian to Islamic.

We don't know the history of those pre-islamic civilizations because of the total annihilation of the past cultures by Sharia law. The customs, law, art, literature, and ethics of the host culture are replaced by Islamic values under the application of Sharia. The result? Nothing is left of the history before the implementation of Sharia law.
We ignore the dhimmitude of the Kafirs (non-Muslims) who live inside Islamic societies. Christians who are left in Islamic countries are an abused people who are unable to fight back after centuries of suffering and degradation under Sharia law. History teaches us that sharia has always led to an Islamic mono-culture. Paris has entire areas that are no go areas for police, firemen, Jews and non-muslims. Amsterdam and Rotterdam, Brussels, Malmo, Marseilles and numerous other european cities have suffered the same fate. In the end, there is no such thing as a little Sharia. In our own city, New York, there are areas that have become enclaves of islamic domination and are producing our own home grown sources of terrorism. Adnan el-Shukrijumah, Qaida’s new head of global operations is an American who lived in Brooklyn. The area he lived in is now a mini-Pakistan/Bangladesh, replete with bearded men sporting all manner of Muslim headgear and long flowing tunics, as well as heavily swathed women, some even veiled. Yes, I know. It's religous freedom and we are all immigrants. The difference is that these immmigrants do not want to assimilate and want to impose theirs.

The mosque, Masjid Nur al-Islam (the Light of Islam Mosque) is the center of islamic life there.
UNTIL THE mid-1990s, Masjid Nur al-Islam’s imam was the late Egyptian-educated Gulshair el-Shukrijumah, . He was initially dispatched by the Saudis as a Wahhabi missionary in 1985. His disciple Clement Rodney Hampton- El was convicted of plotting to blow up the UN, FBI headquarters and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels. Gulshair acted as interpreter for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the “Blind Sheikh” serving life for the first WTC bombing, conspiring to use explosives at other NYC landmarks and colluding to assassinate US politicians. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Gulshair’s eldest son, Saudi-born Adnan, has been designated by (according to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) al-Qaida and personally vetted by Bin Laden to serve as successor to 9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta.
As someone who lived in the neighborhood all life said “Our lives were turned upside down. The newcomers weren’t required to integrate and show sensitivity to the natives. Live-and-let-live didn’t apply to them. “For years the mosque had been calling the faithful to prayers via rooftop loudspeakers five times daily – including pre-dawn. When we complained, the authorities regarded us, not them, as the disruptive element.”

Everything was couched in terms of freedom of worship.

The projected Muslim complex at 45-51 Park Place is simply another step for the domination of another neighborhood in NYC. Feisal Abdul Rauf, has openly declaredhe is seeking a “Shari’a- compliant America.”

Kathy is leery of the imam behind the Cordoba House plans, Feisal Abdul Rauf, who speaks of a “Shari’a- compliant America." What message does using the name Cordoba send? Cordoba was the first city conquered by Muslims in Spain. Every church and cathedral in Cordoba was eventually destroyed or turned into a mosques under islamic rule. If the KKK had a bonfire rally and burned crosses on city streets would you be so tolerant and defend their right of free speech? I doubt it. The issue isn’t our tolerance but their intolerance.