June 15, 2002
Thank you for inviting Chris and me to be with you today.
Nancy Bassett invited me to speak to you several months ago. I suppose my only qualifications to be your speaker are that I’m a local state senator who happens to be a descendant of a Patriot which qualified me to become a member of the Isaac Shelby Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution.
I am a student of history and America’s place in it, which is one of the reasons I take such pride in accepting your invitation today; because of the work you do to keep that history alive and inspire reverence in the community for the principles of government founded by our forefathers.
We honor our flag for all that it represents—the freedom we cherish, the blood that has been shed to defend it, and our hopes for its future, our future, and the future of the free world. Those are the reasons I serve in public office—to defend the freedoms my ancestors fought for in the Revolution and my father fought for as a B24 pilot in WWII. Because my family and I have been the beneficiaries of this democracy symbolized by the flag we honor today, and I feel a duty to bear some of the burdens of it.
Yesterday, which was the United States Army’s 227 birthday, I was honored to be the guest of Major General Richard A. Cody, commanding general of Ft. Campbell, for the Division Review. This is a rare event during which all the troops of the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles, march in review for their commanding general. Although many of the 101st are presently deployed in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world, there remained over 10,000 troops, which took over two hours to review. The posting of the colors, the splendor of our American Flag against the backdrop of masses of olive clad soldiers, the Army Band and the report of howitzers firing their salute after the refrain of “Ruffles and Flourishes” reduced me to tears in a matter of minutes as I thought about my Dad and his B-24 bombing raids over Nazi Germany and Bastogne. And as I worried about whether Ed Bryant who sat with us in the reviewing stand would notice my prideful tears, I realized this was the Division that fought the Battle of the Bulge at Bastogne. My Dad flew support for them bombing the German supply lines when Anthony McAuliffe refused to surrender with the terse reply, “Nuts!” Whenever something perturbed my Dad, I have the distinct childhood memory of him saying “nuts”, and now I understand why.
After the Review, I drove to Nashville to present a Senate Joint Resolution to the Army Recruiting office there. We were joined by several retired officers including General Brophy who introduced me as the son of an Army Air Corps B24 pilot, which honored but surprised me. Afterward, when I asked how he knew, he said he saw a story on the news about my meeting with one of the survivors of my father’s crew last March. One of my Senate constituents from here in Collierville, Tommy Shepherd, had managed through the miracle of e-mail and the internet to accomplish what a lifetime of my searching had been unable to—he found my father’s Navigator who came to meet me and he finished telling me the war stories my dad had started but couldn’t finish before he died when I was eight years old. General Brophy knew all of that yesterday. He honored me by honoring my father’s memory. And it made me proud to think there remains this linkage with the past. Our flag binds us together across the generations all fighting for freedom on the battlefield and in the General Assembly.
Last weekend, I flew to Ft. Irwin in the Mojave Desert to support out National Guard troops engaged in the largest exercise since WWII. The National Guard, of course, is the original militia our forefathers called for in the Constitution. And as I looked at the tanks and artillery pieces and Bradley fighting vehicles row upon row – it took 600 train cars to carry to California – I thought again about those battles men like my father fought to defend our flag. And I thought about General Brophy in Vietnam and General Cody in Afghanistan. And I thought about our Revolutionary War ancestors and what I can do today to defend our flag and all it stands for.
When I became Chairman of the Shelby County Commission back in 1996, one of the first official acts I took was to restore the invocation and Pledge of Allegiance to our order of business at the beginning of each session. I still look back on that as one of our best accomplishments. I am presently sponsoring a Resolution in the Tennessee Senate that would restore the Pledge of Allegiance in our classrooms every day. I support the Constitutional Amendment that will make it possible to once again protect our flag from desecration.
Have any of you thought about the parallel between what took place here on September 11 and what our Revolutionary War ancestors experienced with the invasion of the British? We witnessed on September 11 one of the few attacks upon our nation ever to have taken place on this continent. And although we witnessed it in ways our ancestors could not have imagined, we experienced what must have been very similar feelings of anger and determination that we not lose those freedoms we hold so dear. We learned we are not invulnerable, that we must fight to defend our flag and keep our freedom.
That is why we are here together today. To remember our commitment. To discharge our duty. To recommit to leave this place determined to bring others along to respect our flag and keep it free.
