Let us consider briefly the price that has been paid for us to breathe the air of a new morning, to assemble in the park to enjoy a summer concert, to attend worship services in the church of our choice, and to dream the American dream without limitations. Then, let us pause to remember those who have cultivated and tended our land of freedom--with their courage, their tears, their blood and their very lives.

Our fallen heroes still whisper to us from the grave. If we listen carefully, even today, we can hear the muffled sounds of their call to arms in defense of our nation. This same spirit of freedom is carried in the wind and echoes down through the ages. It is everywhere you look. It can be found in the voices of our children playing in the school yards, in the bountiful goods offered for sale in privately owned places of commerce within our community and in the faces of our citizens in polling places on Election Day.

This spirit can be found in abundance in every corner of every community in this great nation of ours. For this spirit is like an eternal flame. It was lit by the courage and blood of our founding fathers, fanned by the winds of patriots to a brightness beyond description, and then sheltered and protected by members of our Armed Forces from the storms of tyrants and dictators who feared and were blinded by the intense light of liberty and freedom.

Our heartfelt prayers and thanks go out to all of those brave men and women who have stepped forward without hesitation to serve our nation so valiantly in its time of need. These are the qualities that heroes are made of. They are the same qualities that made and have kept America great and free since our founding fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, dedicating their lives to raising up a great republic that would forever be a beacon of freedom to the entire world. We are the land of the free because we are the home of the brave.