I spent Memorial Day 2025 on Whidby Island, Washington. Our new family vacation home is in Oak Harbor, the home of Whidby Island Naval Air Station. It was good to see so many young military families at Mass on Memorial Day Sunday. It reinforces my belief that we are hopefully at the beginning of a new Great American Reawakening. Though Memorial Day is a day to honor our heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice—Veterans Day is for all Veterans, watching military families together at Mass, praying for “the good of His Church and the good of all his people”, the same prayer that is prayed every day in every mass across the world—across the borders and seas that separate people, reminded me that it is our country alone that secures the liberty and freedoms of all the worlds people. What other country in the world—or group of countries—has the ability, the economic power, and a moral virtuous people to stand up to the aggressors that are ubiquitous and seem to have been always present in the world throughout all of time.
Whidby Island today is home of many F-18 “Growler” Squadrons and is also home to the new anti-submarine P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine squadrons that have replaced the P-3 Orians, many that are now deployed to fight Western wildfires. Every time I look across my back deck and see these planes circling across Skagit Bay either coming back from the Pacific Ocean, or flying out to sea, I think of the young men and women who are flying those complicated and sophisticated machines up in the air by themselves, suspended by the technology that builds and keeps them running, and at least for a brief moment a faith in themselves and most certainly their God, that “His Will Be Done”
I felt the same thing when I sat in my office in the middle of winter nights and I watched Life Flight take off and cross the Boise Front on the way to rendezvous with a trauma patient in the Idaho wilderness, who in a couple hours if they were lucky, I would be operating on in the safety of my operating room.
The pilots in those planes and the Life Flight Crews and nurses were and are always taking great risks. Because of their training and because of the reliability of their equipment, those risks are minimized and mitigated—but they are always there.
What makes our country uniquely different is the position of our supplication, recognizing the role of DEVINE PROVIDENCE in the founding of our country and the in the role that He plays in our everyday lives.
As the procession exited the Mass on Sunday, we sang the 1st and last verse of AMERICA. We are all familiar with the first verse. Let me end by repeating the last:
America (My country Tis of Thee) Rev. Samuel Smith 1832
Our fathers’ God to Thee, Author of Liberty, To thee we sing, Long may our land be bright With Freedom’s holy light, Protect us by thy might Great God, our King.
When I watched those Navy families of pilots sing those words, it meant something special to me.
Not just on Veterans and Memorial Day should we say thanks to them and to God. Every day we should at least take a moment to be grateful and thankful to them for protecting our lives and liberties.
We are not a theocracy. We are a great and virtuous people founded by Christian men and women, who always believed in a merciful and loving God. Lincoln’s words in the Gettysburg Address are the best way I know of to say thank you to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, but just as importantly those who are alive and are willing to make that sacrifice for their fellow citizens:
“That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Abraham Lincoln November 19, 1863
AMEN
